Project V
by ParisWriter
Summary: Now Complete! A woman is found in the ruins of a ShinRa research facility with no memory of her past besides her own name. Rufus and Reno both end up taking a keen interest in her, but for entirely different reasons. Post-AC. (Reno/OC)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Here it is! The long-awaited first chapter to the often-mentioned Project V. (Well, it's mentioned a lot if you've been following The Diary of a Turk. Otherwise, this is probably the first you've heard of it.) I can't say I'm entirely happy with the way this first chapter turned out, mostly because I didn't have a comfy place to write it since my laptop is _still _somewhere out in California being repaired. But I got sick of waiting and wanted to start getting this posted, so here ya go. If you like it, be sure to let me know. It just might prompt me to write the next chapter right away rather than waiting god-knows-how-long until my laptop gets back to me before continuing.

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Chapter One

Not much remained of ShinRa's biological research center. Located in Junon, it had been the site of various experiments for nearly twenty years. There was a time when the facility had been shut down, with the relocation of Sister Ray to the company's main headquarters in Midgar, but the doors had once again been opened in recent months under the orders of President Rufus Shinra.

Despite the fact that the center was now being used to conduct experiments that – if successful – would assist the Planet and its people in healing the wounds caused by the catastrophic events in Sephiroth's wake, there were still those who vehemently opposed ShinRa and everything they stood for. Many found it hard to believe the president's change of heart, and considered the reopening of the facility to be a sign that another catastrophe was merely waiting around the corner.

Several anti-ShinRa groups formed, seemingly overnight, and began sending threatening messages to the company's young president. At first, Rufus simply laughed off the threats, saying that the people would come to realize soon enough that he was a changed man, and ShinRa a changed company. Things only continued to steadily grow worse, however, even despite a signed agreement between himself and Reeve Tuesti, head of the World Restoration Organization.

So when ShinRa employees began complaining about receiving similar threats at their homes, Rufus had no choice but to seek out the perpetrators and put an end to the fear that was fast becoming a plague within his newly built empire and the lives of the innocents who worked for him. He called upon his most trusted employees, the members of the Investigation Division of the General Affairs Department – his beloved Turks. With their help, he was able to locate and eradicate the source of all the problems... but not before it was too late.

Shortly after the call came in that the last of the terrorist groups had been dealt with, Rufus received an anonymous tip that a bomb had been planted in the research facility in Junon. Thinking fast, he ordered the entire building to be evacuated. Thankfully, all one-hundred-fifty-two employees were safely accounted for when the explosion occurred a scant three minutes after the evacuation order had been made.

This successful evacuation was precisely why Reno was so annoyed with his current assignment. He and Rude had received the orders before even making it to their office, and by ten-thirty they were landing the company helicopter just outside of the perimeter set up around the ruined building to keep curious passers-by out.

"Remind me again why the hell we're here?" the redhead asked his partner, stepping carefully over a pile of rubble as he shined the beam of his flashlight about.

"We're looking for survivors," Rude replied, running a gloved hand over his bald head to remove the layer of dust that had settled there. While he enjoyed blowing things up, he personally hated scouting the site of an explosion because there always seemed to be a permanent wave of dust floating in the air, which inevitably would settle on top of his head, making it itch something terrible.

"I know why Rufus said we _should_ come here," Reno continued, stopping to move aside a door that had only come half unhinged in the blast. "That doesn't tell me why we _are_ here. I mean, isn't this just a waste of our time? They said everyone got out safely. Even if they didn't, what makes him think _anyone_ could have survived that blast, huh?"

"Would you rather be sitting back at headquarters, bored off your ass?" Rude asked, turning his perpetually shaded eyes toward his companion.

Reno threw up his hands in exasperation. "All I'm saying is, this is a fucking waste of our time, yo."

Rude shook his head, but kept his mouth shut as he turned away from Reno and made his way to the opposite side of the room. They had handled each of the facility's expansive laboratories the same way, splitting up at the door and meeting in the middle. He could still hear Reno complaining even with all that space between them, and knew he was in for a headache caused by the younger man's incessant bitching. Trying to keep his mind on anything other than how much he wanted to punch Reno just to shut him up, he began humming a little song to himself as he scanned the area with his flashlight, once again reaching up with his free hand to wipe the dust from his head.

"Find anything?" Reno called from across the room, his back still turned as he continued his own search.

"Nothing," Rude called back over his shoulder.

"Of course you haven't," came the reply Rude had been expecting. "We're not _gonna_ find anything in this shit."

Rude's grip tightened slightly on his flashlight. Reno was his partner, had been for over eight years now. He loved the kid like a brother, but sometimes he could just be so damn annoying...

His thoughts were interrupted as the beam of his flashlight came to rest on something in particular amongst the rubble.

"Reno!" he shouted, setting his flashlight down on the ground with the light pointed in the same direction. He moved closer to the rubble, discovering it to be one rather large piece of the wall between the room they were in and the one next door.

"What is it?" Reno asked as he approached, shining his light in Rude's face.

"Get that out of my eyes," Rude ordered, holding up his hands to shield himself from the offensive glare. "Look," he added once Reno had lowered his flashlight, pointing toward the fallen wall.

Reno took a few steps forward, leaning down over the rubble. His blue eyes squinted at the spot Rude had indicated, but all he saw was pieces of sheet rock and plaster dust.

"Man, what the hell are you – oh!" he exclaimed as he finally saw what his partner had noticed. Among the debris surrounding the fallen wall, the tips of three fingers were barely visible.

"Help me get this wall up," Rude told him, gesturing to the opposite end of the fallen wall with a nod of his head. Reno remained fixed to the spot, his mouth hanging open slightly in disbelief.

"Reno!" Rude yelled, finally getting his attention. The redheaded Turk tucked his flashlight into the pocket of his navy blue blazer and moved to stand opposite his partner. The two men bent down to grasp the edges of the wall, and with Rude's signal they lifted. At first, it refused to move, but on the second try it finally gave way and began to shift.

"Careful," Rude warned as the wall began to slip from Reno's fingers. He shifted his grip and with a loud grunt they managed to finally lift the fallen slab of plaster and sheet rock enough to move it aside.

"I'll be damned," Reno managed to say through gasped breaths as he turned his eyes to what – or, rather, _who_ – had been lying beneath the wall.

She appeared to be fairly young, though given her current state he really couldn't attempt to make an accurate estimation of her age. Like everything else in the building, she was covered in dust, but he could still make out that she was wearing some sort of hospital gown. Her hair was ashen with the plaster coating it, but appeared to be dark underneath, and her skin was pale. That could have been due to the dusty residue, as well, but he had a feeling she was naturally fair-skinned.

"Damn shame," he muttered as his attention shifted from her physical appearance to her injuries. Aside from a few superficial cuts and bruises on her legs and arms, her body appeared to be mostly free of any signs of injury. On the other hand, she had a pretty bad scrape down the left side of her face, and a nasty gash at the top of her forehead disappearing into her hair.

Reno squatted next to her to better look at the head injury, and winced in pain as he cut open the palm of his right hand on a shard of glass lying on the floor.

"Son of a bitch!" he shouted, lifting his hand and pulling the glass from it. Rude tossed him a handkerchief and he tied it around the wound to help stop the bleeding. His eyes traveled across the floor around them, and he discovered the entire area was littered with pieces of glass in varying sizes and shapes.

"She's alive."

Reno had been paying so much attention to his own injury that he hadn't noticed Rude checking the girl for signs of life.

"C'mon," he drawled in disbelief. "How is that possible? She was crushed under a _wall_."

Rude shrugged. "She _has_ a pulse, Reno. It's weak, but it's there. I'm not saying she's _going_ to live, but she's alive right now."

Reno sighed and used his uninjured hand to root around in his pockets for his mobile phone. Once he located it, he hit a button on his speed dial and brought the phone to his ear.

"This is Reno," he said once someone answered on the other end. "Inform the President we've located a survivor, and send a medical team to the site immediately."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Reno sighed heavily, his blue eyes turned upward toward the ceiling of the corridor outside the intensive care enter in Edge's largest hospital – which, coincidentally, was owned and operated by ShinRa. His slender arms were crossed over his chest, his long fingers tapping an impatient rhythm on the sleeve of his blazer as he bounced his head off the wall behind him. Rude was seated nearby, patiently reading through some sort of magazine. He turned his shaded eyes to his partner as he flipped the page, shaking his head slightly.

"Sit down, Reno," he requested.

"How long do you think we're going to actually have to be here?" Reno asked, continuing to bang his head back against the wall.

"President Rufus instructed us to remain here until he has finished discussing the girl's condition with the healers." Rude replied, nearly repeating their employer's words verbatim.

Reno scoffed. "It doesn't take almost two hours to say, 'She was badly hurt in the explosion and probably won't make it.'"

"If you're getting tired of standing there, you could always sit down," Rude suggested, gesturing to the empty chairs surrounding his. "There's plenty of reading material here to keep you busy, too."

"You know I don't read," Reno reminded his partner. "Besides, if I sit down over there, I can't see what's going on in _there_," he added, pointing to the window across from where he was standing, which allowed him to see directly into the room where Rufus was talking to the doctors.

The girl was situated in the middle of the group, laid out on a bed with various machinery hooked up to her to track her vital signs. Apparently, she had been worse off than Reno had originally thought. The initial report had stated she had a severe concussion, three broken ribs, and some internal bleeding. She had also lost a lot of blood through the gash in her head. The doctors said it was a miracle she was still alive, and Reno noticed that – somehow – Rufus hadn't been very surprised by that observation.

"What are they saying?" Rude asked, momentarily looking up from his magazine to his partner.

"The docs' backs are turned, so all I really have to go on is Rufus."

"And what is _he_ saying?"

Reno shook his head and sighed again, reaching up to scratch his neck. "Not a hell of a lot. Just the occasional prompting for the docs to continue their report or explain what something means."

"Why don't you just give it a rest, Reno?" Rude asked him.

"Because something is seriously weird about this situation," Reno replied as he shifted his position slightly against the wall. "Everyone who was supposed to be in that building was accounted for. So how the hell did he know we would find someone else?"

"Does it really matter how he knew?"

"Yes, it matters!" Reno snapped, his voice rising considerably. A couple of nurses who had been talking quietly nearby turned to him briefly, then shrugged off his outburst and resumed their conversation. Rude had also been startled by Reno's uncharacteristic loss of temper.

"Why are you so on edge lately?" he wondered out loud, watching the other man carefully.

"He's keeping something from us."

"Rufus is _always_ keeping things from us," Rude pointed out. "We're on a need to know basis."

"Yeah, but this is something _big_," Reno insisted. "I can feel it."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I can _feel_ it," Reno repeated.

"No offense, Reno," Rude told him, "but your instincts haven't exactly been one-hundred percent correct in the past."

Reno merely groaned in frustration. He wasn't going to try to sway Rude's opinion on the matter, because part of him know his partner was right. Rufus told them what they needed to know to get the job done, and they didn't ask questions. It was the way things had always been run with the Turks – even before Rufus was acting president – and it had always suited Reno just fine. He didn't need to know the details about all the people he'd tortured or killed in ShinRa's name. But _something_ about this situation was bugging him to no end.

"You know what they say about curiosity, Reno. Maybe you better just leave this one alone."

"Yeah, well... I ain't no cat," Reno retorted, his eyes scrunching up slightly as he tried to make out what Rufus was saying on the other side of the glass.

"_I believe Reno may be the same type."_

"Shit," Reno muttered, shaking his head.

"What's wrong?" Rude asked, giving up on trying to finish the article he'd been reading.

"Looks like Rufus just volunteered me to be some sort of donor."

Rude looked at him quizzically, but he never got a chance to ask the question that was on his lips. The door to the room where the girl was being treated opened and their boss walked out, flanked on either side by the doctors he had just been speaking with.

"How is she, Sir?" Rude asked as he rose from his seat and moved to stand next to Reno.

"Hard to say at the moment," Rufus replied, glancing through the window at her unconscious form. "She had a lot of internal injuries, lost a lot of blood... right now she's got a fever that's on the borderline of causing permanent brain damage – probably from some sort of infection _they_ haven't quite put their finger on," he concluded, glaring at the doctors standing behind him.

Reno took in everything Rufus said to them, making note of his demeanor as well as his words. He found it particularly interesting that Rufus not only kept glancing into the room next to him, he also brushed his hand back through his blonde hair – twice – during his little speech. That was something else Reno found suspicious: Any other time, Rufus would have told them as little as possible about the situation. Yet here he was, freely telling them everything he knew about the condition of the woman they'd found in that ruined building.

"Well what did you expect, really?" Reno asked, unable to hold his tongue. Rufus turned in his direction and fixed him with a withering glare that normally would have made him back down. This time, however, Reno continued to stand up to his employer, fixing him with a look of his own.

"Reno," Rufus purred his name in a way that was nothing close to sexual and everything like a predator. "The doctors say there's a blood shortage and that the girl may die if she doesn't receive another transfusion. Your blood type is A, isn't it?"

"Yes, Sir," Reno replied, his eyes flickering to Rude momentarily before returning to Rufus' face.

"Good," he replied, giving him a smile that never quite reached his eyes. "You will be staying here and supplying a donation to be given to her. Rude, you will accompany me back to headquarters so that we can arrange for her to be moved there once she is stable."

Reno silently watched as Rufus started to walk down the hall, bound for the elevator. Rude looked at him for a moment, silently telling him to lay off before he went to join their employer. The redheaded Turk sighed deeply as he watched them board the elevator and the door slowly slid shut.

"This way, please," one of the doctors requested, holding out a hand to indicate that Reno should precede him into a room just down the hall from the girl's room. Reno sighed deeply and reluctantly allowed himself to be ushered into the room and toward a chair with a wide, flat armrest on one side.

"Remove your jacket and roll up your sleeve, please."

Reno did what was asked of him, but only because he knew he was already going to be in enough trouble with Rufus for shooting his mouth off the way he had. He couldn't help it, though. Ever since he and Rude had been sent on the mission he had become increasingly agitated by the circumstances. It was like he was becoming crazed with the mission, which never happened. He always went in, did his job, and never thought about it again. Then again, never before had Rufus acted quite the way he had been since telling him and Rude to go search what remained of the research facility.

He closed his eyes and tried to pull himself together as the doctor stuck a needle in his arm to collect the blood they needed to give the girl. If he didn't get a grip, he was likely going to end up on the wrong side of Rufus Shinra, which he knew from personal experience was_ not_ a good place to be.


	3. Chapter 3

Autor's Note: Damn, this chapter ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would, lol... But long is good, right?At any rate, here it is: after multiple re-writes of the middle, I think I'm finally satisfied with the way it turned out. Oh well... I better just post it before I change my mind and start redoing it again!

Edit on 2/23/07: I changed a slight detail in this chapter because it messed up my timeline for the other stories I've been working on. I'll give you a cookie if you can tell me what it is.

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Chapter Three

Rude looked up from his paperwork to where Reno was sitting at his desk across the office. The redhead had his feet propped up on the desk, a pencil stuck between his upper lip and his nose as he reclined in his chair.

"Are you going to do _any_ work today?" Rude asked, gesturing to the pile of paperwork on his partner's desk.

"I'm trying to make it last as long as I can," Reno replied, careful to keep his upper lip curled enough to keep the pencil poised like a mustache. "We both know field work has been slow since ShinRa's adopted this whole 'kinder, gentler' image."

Rude sighed and shook his head, turning his attention back to the form he had been filling out. Reno was right – the mission to check the research facility in Junon had been their first day out of the office in almost a month. Still, he didn't feel that was enough of an excuse to allow the younger Turk to shirk his responsibilities.

"Reno."

Tseng's voice come over the intercom sitting on Reno's desk, breaking his concentration and causing the pencil to drop from its perch on his face. He swore quietly under his breath before sitting up in his chair and pressing the button just below the two-way speaker.

"Yes, Sir?" he addressed his boss.

"President Rufus wants you in his office, _now,_" Tseng's voice informed him, calm but stern.

Those were the words Reno had been dreading he would hear for the past week. He had known that the president was unhappy with his outburst at the hospital – the nurses who had overheard his conversation with Rude had ratted him out – and he was expecting nothing less than a severe lecture from his employer.

"I'm on my way," he replied into the intercom.

Rude avoided looking at him as he stood up and ran his hands back through his messy red hair, trying and failing to make it any neater than usual. Next, he fidgeted with his shirt, running his palms down the front in an attempt to smooth out the wrinkles that seemed to be permanently embedded into the fabric. Then he took a moment to brush off his navy blue jacket, in case any visible crumbs had attached themselves to the fabric during lunch.

"Stop stalling, Reno," Rude said without looking up. "The more time you take to get there, the more time he'll have to mull over your punishment."

Reno sighed deeply and exited their office, trying to remain as casual as possible as he walked down the hall toward the elevator banks. A couple of secretaries stepped off the lift as he reached it, chatting away excitedly. He gave them one of his best smiles and winked at them, causing the shorter of the two to giggle a bit like a teenager. With a playful wave, he reached out to press the button for the top floor, where Rufus's office was. Tseng's office was up there, too, but compared to the size of the President's it might as well have been called a closet.

He often wondered why the young president liked to keep Tseng in such close quarters. Back when Rufus was in charge of the Turks, they had all been set up for operations out of Junon. Since his father died and he received the promotion he'd so longed for, however, they had all been relocated to Midgar – well, Edge, now that Midgar was not much more than a hole full of rubble – and Tseng had been given a small, but posh office on the top floor, right across from Rufus.

Of course, there _were_ rumors. Reno knew them all quite well, actually, being that he had an ear for gossip. He wasn't sure he believed them, though. He'd caught Tseng making eyes at Elena when her back was turned on more than one occasion, especially in the six months since the incident where they both narrowly escaped with their lives. Then again, Tseng had been a part of Rufus' life since before _Rude_ had begun training to become a Turk, two years prior to Reno joining. So maybe there really was something more than just friendship between the two of them. Personally, it wasn't something Reno wanted to spend too much time thinking about.

The trip in the elevator seemed much faster than usual, probably due to the fact that Reno was actually _not_ looking forward to the conversation that awaited him upon reaching his destination. He stepped out into the hallway, taking each step at a slower-than-normal pace, despite the knowledge that Rude was right about what he said about putting off the inevitable, and used the time it took to walk from the elevator bank to the doors leading to Rufus' office to put on his well-practiced 'I know I was bad, please don't order me killed' face.

Reno raised his hand to knock on the dark, heavy wood door leading to his boss' office, then counted the number of seconds it took for him to answer. Sort of like a thunder clap after lightning, Rufus Shinra's moods could often be determined by how soon after knocking he asked you to enter – it was an indication of how much he was expecting you.

"Enter," came the order from the other side of the door. Reno had barely even finished knocking. This was not good.

With a small sigh, Reno opened one of the doors and stepped into the office, making sure not to look directly at the president before he finished closing it behind him. When he finally did meet the younger man's gaze, he found he was being smiled at. The smile didn't quite reach Rufus' cold blue eyes – none of his smiles ever did – but this smile wasn't the same as the humorless one he put on in the public's view. It was the one he saved for when he was about to punish some sorry sap for being stupid enough to cross him.

"Reno, glad to see you could finally make it," he said, his voice not betraying the slightest bit of emotion as he sat back in his plush leather chair and rested his elbows on the arms, steepling his fingers against his lips. "I have the details of your next assignment for you."

Reno merely nodded. He knew that speaking when he hadn't been asked to was probably not the best course of action, but it was hard to contain his surprise. He had suspected Rufus would order him to take a leave of absence without pay, and instead he was being given a new mission to carry out.

"The girl has been released from the hospital's care and placed in a room on the third floor."

"She's awake, then?" Reno asked before he could stop himself.

"No," Rufus replied, with a bit of a sigh. His eyes flickered away from the Turk's only briefly before he looked up at him again. "She is still unconscious, but she is stable. Your job will be to sit with her until she wakes up."

Reno blinked stupidly for a moment, wondering if he'd heard correctly. _That_ was the mission Rufus was going to send him on? Reno had thought maybe he would be sent on something insanely dangerous that might end up killing him, not on some sort of baby-sitting job. Suddenly, it became apparent what his employer really wanted: he didn't want Reno dead, he wanted him to suffer.

"With all due respect, Sir, I hardly think that a person with my qualifications would be the best candidate for an assignment such as this," he protested.

"Either you can sit with the girl and guard her until she wakes up," Rufus repeated, his smile turning into a somewhat lecherous grin, "or you can accompany me on business to Costa del Sol this weekend."

Reno knew far too well what that meant. He had been unfortunate enough to receive a similar assignment his second month with the Turks, back when Rufus had been his direct supervisor under Mr. Shinra's presidency. A 'business trip to Costa del Sol' was basically Rufus' code phrase for 'let's go to Costa del Sol and fuck all weekend.' The only thing that had enabled Reno to refuse his boss' advances the first time was the fact that Mr. Shinra had no idea bout his son's sexual orientation, but now the old man was dead and Rufus was in charge so there was no way Reno could blackmail him into keeping his dick in his pants around him.

"I think Tseng would be far better suited for that mission," the redhead said without losing his composure. "I'll take on the task of watching over the girl."

Reno could hear the disappointment in Rufus' sigh. It should have made him feel relieved that the other man was giving up, but it bothered him because it meant Rufus actually _cared_ that he wouldn't sleep with him. Repressing the shudder that so desperately wanted to crawl its way down his spine, he straightened his posture and cleared his throat before addressing his employer once more.

"What room is she in?" he asked, impressing himself with the way his voice remained steady despite the utterly disgusting mental images his mind was conjuring up of Rufus and the sick little games he was sure to enjoy playing in the bedroom.

"Third floor, second one on the right when you get off the elevator," the blonde man replied. Reno nodded and turned to leave, fully aware of how Rufus would be checking out his ass as he made his way out of the office and back to the elevator bank.

"I trust everything went well?" Tseng asked as he emerged from his office just as Reno was passing by.

"Yeah," he scoffed. "I get to go watch some chick sleep, and you get to accompany the president on one of his little _business_ trips."

"Don't sound so disappointed, Reno," Tseng told him with a laugh. "I'm sure Rufus would love to take you with him, instead."

Reno was glad that he didn't have to wait for the elevator to come back up for him. The doors opened as soon as he pressed the down button, and he stepped in without giving his supervisor another word or glance in his direction. Unfortunately, the ride down wasn't any faster than the one up. In fact, it took even longer because he had several more floors to go down that he normally would if he was just returning to his office. He couldn't help but let his mind wander to all the times he'd been propositioned by Rufus in the nearly ten years he'd been with the Turks, and the fact that he had never once heard of his partner being approached in the same way. He reasoned it was probably because Rude was too masculine – Rufus seemed to like 'pretty' guys, like Tseng. Then, did that mean _he_ was pretty?

Shaking the thought from his head as the elevator dinged, indicating he had reached the third floor, he stepped out and made his way to the room Rufus had told him to report to.

"About damn time," Elena grumbled from a seat just inside the door when he entered. Her legs were crossed, and she had a small paperback novel on her knee with the pages bent back as far as they would go without ripping them out of the binding.

"Laney," Reno greeted her, smiling as relief washed over him. This new assignment might suck beyond belief, but at least he wasn't going to have to do it alone. "Man, I am glad to see you."

"Not half as glad as I am to see you," she told him, placing a folded sheet of paper into her book before closing it and standing up, tucking the novel under her arm and heading for the door.

"Wait," Reno said, stopping her with a hand on her arm. "Where are you going?"

"Home," Elena told him matter-of-factly. "My shift is over. I need to do something stimulating to bring my brain out of hibernation. Have fun!"

Reno gaped at her as she gave him a small wave before making her way to the elevator, leaving him alone with the comatose girl from the site of the explosion. He looked around the room for something to keep himself occupied, but found nothing. There wasn't even a television in the room, which he supposed made sense because she couldn't exactly watch anything in her current state. He would have given a good amount of gil for _anything_, even a damn book, to keep him from going bored out of his mind.

"What did I do to deserve this?" he said under his breath as he pulled the chair Elena had been sitting on over to the side of the bed and seated himself upon it with a bored sigh.

**

* * *

**

"Three weeks, Rude... Three fucking weeks he's had me spending the night in that damn room, watching her."

Rude tried his best not to laugh at is partner's plight, but a small smile still managed to escape and grace his lips. He had been hearing the same speech every day since Rufus gave Reno his 'punishment' for the outburst in the hospital, and while he knew he shouldn't be finding such amusement in the younger man's suffering, he couldn't help but see the situation as humorous.

"I have to sit there, watching her basically _sleep_ all the damn time, and not be able to sleep myself," the redhead continued ranting as they rode down in the elevator together. "I actually _did_ fall asleep once and you know what happened? One of the security guys told Rufus and he threatened to dock me a week's pay if it happened again. What bullshit!"

"Reno," Rude said as the elevator stopped on the third floor, attempting to get his attention.

"Seriously, man... not only is he depriving me of sleep, but being stuck here every night is putting a _serious_ cramp in my social life, yo."

"Reno!"

"What?" Reno snapped, turning to eye his partner.

"Your floor," Rude announced, gesturing toward the open doors and the hallway stretching out before them. Reno glanced out into the hallway and sighed.

"Yeah, yeah... I know," he said dejectedly, stepping through the doors. "Hey, thanks for the comic books, yo. I don't know what I'd do without them. Probably go insane and start fucking shooting everything," he added, holding up the stack of brightly colored superhero comics Rude had brought to work for him to borrow.

"You're welcome," Rude replied as the doors slid shut.

Reno reluctantly made his way to the girl's room, and found Elena there waiting for him, tapping her foot impatiently and staring at the clock.

"What's with you?" he asked upon seeing the state she was in. Usually, she was calmly sitting in a chair reading a book – he discovered she preferred trashy romances – but today she seemed flustered and unwilling to be in the same room as their charge.

"I have a date, and I'm going to be late thanks to your dilly-dallying," she informed him as she quickly maneuvered around his form in the doorway and made a beeline for the elevator.

"Sorry," Reno said to the space where she had just been standing, then took his usual seat next to the girl's bed. The next few hours were spent reading through the comics Rude had given him, which was an entertaining task, but he still ended up feeling tired after about the fifth hour of sitting still.

He felt his eyelids beginning to droop and decided that it wouldn't hurt to just close them for a few minutes. He wouldn't sleep, just rest his eyes, and if Rufus wanted to dock his pay, he would tell him that. He glanced at the monitors next to the girl's bed, then looked out into the hallway briefly, stretching his arms up over his head and his long legs out in front of him, then tucked his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

Reno had barely settled into the comfortable darkness when he heard a sharp gasp. He bolted to his feet, nearly knocking over his chair, and prepared to tell the guard who had caught him that he was _not_ sleeping on the job, even if it looked that way. He was surprised to find the doorway and the hall beyond it still empty, and wondered if he hadn't just imagined the noise.

"Excuse me?" came a soft, feminine voice from behind him. Reno turned slowly toward the bed and found the girl struggling to pull herself into a sitting positiong.

"Hi," he said stupidly, unsure what exactly he _was_ supposed to say to her.

"Can you tell me where I am?" she asked as she tried to get into an upright position against the pillows.

Reno moved over to the side of the bed and placed a hand against her back, carefully helping her sit up and moving the pillows to support her.

"You're at the ShinRa headquarters, in Edge," he informed her. "Do you know where that is?"

She sat quietly for a moment, apparently thinking about his question, then shook her head slowly.

"What happened to me?" she asked in that same quiet voice. "Why am I here?"

"You were in an explosion," he answered her, taking in her appearance. The wounds on her face had nearly finished healing, leaving only a slight bruising around her cheekbone. If he hadn't seen the gash in her head first-hand, he never would have known it was there, and now, finally, he knew what color her eyes were: They were a soft shade of brown, clear and innocent.

"Is this a hospital?"

"Hmm?" Reno said, not hearing her question at first. When it finally registered that he was staring, he shook his head and moved to stand at the foot of her bed, as far away from her as he could get.

"No, this isn't a hospital. You _were_ in the hospital, but my boss had you moved here once you were stable."

"Why?" she asked. "Do I know him?"

"You tell me," Reno said, running a hand back through his messy hair. "I'm just as in the dark as you are about why he insisted you be brought here."

The girl nodded and the same thoughtful look crossed over her face as before. Reno tilted his head to the side as he watched her, wondering if she was figuring out the reason behind Rufus' insistence that she remain in ShinRa's custody and care.

"Who am I?"

The question was barely more than a whisper. Reno thought she was kidding at first, but then she met his eyes and he saw a genuine fear in those brown orbs that told him she really had no clue who she was.

"You don't know your name?" he asked, hoping maybe _something_ remained of who she was in her memory.

"I..." she began, then hesitated, shaking her head slightly as she brought a hand to her temple as if fending off an oncoming headache.

"Cera," she said after a moment. "They called me Cera."


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Notes: Sorry to those of you who I promised this chapter to a couple of weeks ago. The muses were being bitchy and refused to cooperate. Hopefully they'll be a little nicer while I'm writing the next chapter.

And as a point of interest, in case anyone was unsure: Cera's name is pronounced like "Sarah."

* * *

Chapter Four

Reno stood quietly against the wall, arms folded across his chest as he watched the doctor examine the girl – Cera. Rufus was standing on the opposite side of her bed, his hands linked together in front of him as he observed the proceedings. It had taken less than five minutes for both of them to arrive after Reno had made the initial call to his boss, and those five minutes had been the most awkward passage of time he had ever experienced.

He had expected her to go ballistic after realizing she had no memory, but she had remained unusually calm. Perhaps she was just in shock, but whatever the reason he was grateful for her lack of hysterics. She just sat in the bed, her brow furrowed in concentration and her eyes moving about the room aimlessly, as though she was mentally trying to put together some sort of puzzle. He actually felt a bit sorry for her, because by the time Rufus arrived with the doctor, he could see tears of frustration beginning to form in her soft brown eyes.

The doctor spoke in hushed tones, keeping the conversation quiet enough that he couldn't hear from his place across the room, and Reno cursed the fact that the man's back was facing him. She nervously looked from the doctor to Rufus, her eyes still shining with her unshed tears from earlier, and Reno shifted uneasily in his spot, wishing Rufus would have just ordered him to leave rather than making him stay. But no, his employer had informed him that his job was not done just because she was awake – it was only done when _he_ said it was.

"Reno, would you please come here?"

Rufus' voice was devoid of emotion, as usual. Reno wondered if it was because he still wasn't fully awake, or if it was merely the calm before the storm that he was known to exhibit from time to time. He'd said _please_, though, which was rather uncharacteristic of him – though Reno suspected he was probably just looking to show the girl that he was nicer than the complete asshole he tended to be. Then again, there was another possibility: Perhaps he was simply being nice to Reno because he needed him to do something less-than-pleasant and didn't want to start an argument in front of their present company.

"Yes, sir?" the Turk replied, pushing off the wall to go stand at the foot of Cera's bed. He absent-mindedly began playing with the blanket folded at her feet, tugging at the fringed edge as he met his employer's gaze.

"Cera here is going to need to have physical therapy twice a day for the next few weeks in order to regain her strength. I want you to be present for all of these sessions."

"Why?" Reno asked with a laugh. "It's not like she can just get up and run off."

Rufus sighed heavily and shook his head before answering the younger man's question. "I simply wish to take precautions, Reno, to be sure she isn't harmed by anyone in any way."

"So you're saying you don't trust the doc here?" Reno asked, pointing to the physician seated to his left. "Pretty bold of you to make that kind of a statement right in front of him, yo."

"Doctor Robins understands my need to see to it that Cera remains protected, even in his presence. He does not object to you being here during her sessions, so I do not see why _you_ feel the need to object _for_ him."

Reno glanced at the doctor, who merely nodded, then turned to the girl. She blinked a few times before looking away from him, but he caught the faintest hint of a smile on her face as she spoke.

"Is it really necessary for him to be present? It's obvious he doesn't _want _to be here."

"Yes, it is," Rufus insisted, and she nodded almost imperceptibly. Her eyes flickered to Reno's once more, and the Turk thought he saw the faintest glimmer of an apology in those chocolate-colored orbs.

* * *

Reno followed Rufus' orders – albeit reluctantly – and showed up for every one of Cera's scheduled appointments with Doctor Robins. He would stand by the door, arms crossed over his chest, and watch with complete and utter boredom etched on his face as the doctor assisted her in regaining the use of her legs. 

During the first session, the doctor had been kind enough to fill Reno in on why Cera required such therapy. Apparently, she had been in a coma in that research facility for so long that her brain not only scrambled her memory banks, but it also forgot how to walk. He'd called it some fancy medical thing, "a-trophy" or something like that, but Reno had only been half-listening. His mind was on the million other things he'd rather be doing than standing there watching the doc play with the girl's legs.

Then again, Reno was also _enjoying_ watching the man play with her legs. Or, at least, certain parts of him were. The first few days, he had chastised himself for having such thoughts while on the job, but after that he pushed aside his guilt. So far as he was concerned, it was fair compensation for all the action Rufus was forcing him to miss just by being there.

Rude told him on the second day of his newest bullshit assignment that the rest of the Turks were being sent on good, old-fashioned stakeouts. While a stakeout wasn't much more exciting than watching some doctor try to get some chick's legs back into working order, Reno through it was a hell of a lot more interesting. With a stakeout, you had a specific target in mind, something to look forward to, an objective. This... This was just pointless.

"Alright, Cera," the doctor said, bringing Reno's mind back to the room he was standing in. "You seem to be making excellent progress. I would say another week or two and you should be up and around."

The girl smiled at the older man before glancing over to Reno very briefly. He'd noticed she'd been doing that more with each visit. Every time her sessions would come to an end, she would look in his direction, almost as if she was sad to see him going in the wake of the doctor.

"Thank you," she told her physician, nodding slightly. The doctor merely began packing up his equipment, placing each item carefully back in his bag. Reno moved to open the door for the other man, planning to follow him out and head back to his office for a nice nap on top of the pile of paperwork he still hadn't completed from over a month ago.

"Reno?"

Her voice was quiet and unsure, and he couldn't stop himself from automatically turning at the sound of his name. It was the first time she had ever _said_ his name, and he wasn't sure if she was going to thank him, too, or tell him she never wanted to see him again, or what. His blue eyes fixed themselves on her face and she looked down at the bed she was seated upon, a slight blush coloring her cheeks.

"Would you mind staying with me a while after the doctor leaves?" she asked, looking up at him briefly before returning her gaze to the floral pattern of the bedclothes, tracing the outline of one of the blossoms with her fingertip. "It gets awfully lonely with no one here, and I'm sure the doctor has other patients he needs to go see."

Reno gave her request some serious thought. Rufus had only specified that he was to be there during her therapy sessions. He hadn't said _anything_ about him being required to stay afterwards. Then again, he didn't say he _couldn't_ stay if he wanted to. That's what it all came down to in his mind: _Did_ he want to?

"Sure," he heard himself saying as he moved away from the door to stand at her bedside. "I guess I can keep you company for a while."

The doctor issued his goodbyes to them both, and the redhead watched him leave, wondering what in the hell possessed him to stay. Once the door had closed behind the older man, his gaze returned to Cera. For the first time in weeks, he let himself take in her appearance again. She had a bit more color than before, but she was still rather pale – probably her natural complexion. Her long, raven-colored hair was shinier now, more healthy-looking than the dull mass it had been when they first found her, and her brown eyes had a bit more spark to them. He still saw a sort of lost confusion in those eyes, but for someone with no memory of her past or who she was, she was coping pretty well.

"Thank you for staying," she told him, shifting her position to the edge of the bed and dangling her legs over the side. She was still in one of those hospital-issue beds, so her feet barely touched the floor, and it wasn't until she started lowering her feet until they were flat on the cold tiles that Reno finally realized what she was doing.

"Woah, woah... The doc said you're not supposed to be walking yet," he reminded her as he rushed around to the opposite side of the bed to stand before her, his arms stretched out to catch her in case she fell.

"I'm not going to get any better any faster at this rate," she told him, bracing herself with her arms and struggling slightly to push off the bed and get herself into a standing position. "I figured, if I try to actually _walk_, it might be beneficial."

Reno stood there, watching her intently as she began shifting her weight to her legs. She began to waver slightly and he moved forward, but she shook her head at him, indicating that she didn't need his help. He held his breath as she finally pulled herself into a full standing position, and winced as her legs suddenly buckled under her and she fell to the floor. He bent down, reaching for her to help her up, but she slapped his hands away.

"Let me do this myself," she requested, and he nodded, taking a step back, his eyes never leaving her.

She struggled to pull herself back up, her hands gripping the bed frame so tightly her arms began to tremble from th exertion, and it reminded him of when he was a boy. His mother had fallen ill when he was eight, and one of the first things she had lost was her ability to walk. She'd been just as stubborn and determined as Cera was, refusing any help he tried to give her. But things were different, now. Back then, he'd only been a kid and he was too small to force her to let him help her. Now he was a man, and while he respected Cera's desire to do this on her own, it was becoming increasingly obvious that she really _wasn't_ ready to be taking this step yet in her recovery.

With a heavy sigh, he bent down, ignoring her protests as he slid one of his arms around her waist and carefully pulled her back to her feet. He held her for a moment to make sure she was steady before he let go, and that moment of closeness opened up all manner of new senses for him. His nose was assaulted with the sweet smell of lilies and rosewood and honey, probably from her shampoo or perhaps some sort of perfume she wore. The feel of her warmth beneath the soft fabric of the long white dress Rufus had given her to wear reminded him of just how long it had been since he had a woman, and her closeness brought about a rather natural reaction in him that he was actually embarrassed of, for once.

As soon as he was sure she wasn't going to fall again, he let go and moved across the room, hoping she hadn't noticed his predicament and wondering when the hell he started caring if a woman could tell he was getting turned on. He reminded himself that this wasn't just some floozy he was picking up in a bar for a wild night. She wasn't someone he could use and then dump the next morning. Getting involved with her like that was more than just stupid – it was downright suicidal.

"Thank you," she said quietly, apparently not too proud to show her appreciation for him having helped her, even if it _was_ against her initial wishes.

"Welcome," he muttered, looking everywhere but directly at her. He knew he should stay to make sure she didn't fall again – potentially hurting herself in the process – but he was desperate to get himself as far away from her as he could in as little time as possible.

"Look, I uh... I gotta go get some paperwork done before Rufus chews my ass out over it," he told her, running a hand back through his messy red hair and turning to her with a sheepish grin. "I've been kinda lax in my duties lately."

She merely nodded, but she couldn't hide the disappointment in her eyes. Despite his desire to leave, Reno found himself feeling guilty for making her be alone again after she had asked him to stay.

"Look," he added with a sigh, "I'm really sorry I can't stay today, but I will tomorrow. I promise."

Even as the words came out of his mouth, he was mentally kicking himself for saying them. He never promised a woman anything... _never_. And here he was making some stupid promise to spend time with a girl he barely even knew just because he felt sorry for her. He rationalized that he was only doing it because otherwise he would just be sitting in his office bored for the rest of the day, but he couldn't deny the little voice in the back of his head screaming that he was intrigued by her.

"You don't have to," Cera said, shaking her head slightly. "I understand if you're busy."

"Nah, it's no biggie," he replied, kicking himself again.

She smiled at him, nodding, that slight blush returning, and Reno found himself smiling back at her. He quickly pushed back the mental images that were threatening to surface, deciding that he needed to go out and get laid asap in order to get rid of them, and forced himself out the door of her room, sighing deeply once he had closed it behind him. As much as he was apparently fascinated by her, she was a strange girl, and she was making him act – and _feel_ – far too strange even for his tastes.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Sorry for such a long wait for this chapter, but as you can see it's another monster, clocking in at over 3400 words. The next chapter will probably be shorter, though, so expect it relatively sooner. Also, I apologize for the double author's note, but I didn't want to spoil anything by putting pronunciations at the beginning.

* * *

Chapter Five

Reno froze in place, his hand still on the doorknob as he stood in the threshold of the room Rufus had moved Cera to. It was hard to believe that just over a week ago, she had been struggling to stand. Her face lit up with a smile as she crossed the room to stand before him, walking with an effortless grace that belied her previous physical state, the skirt of her long white dress billowing softly with each step she took.

"Something wrong?" she asked him, turning to gaze at herself in a mirror that was situated next to them. She looked herself over self-consciously for a moment before looking to him again. "What is it?"

"Nothing," he told her, shaking his head and shrugging as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of playing cards. "You ready?"

Cera nodded, but her smile wasn't completely genuine, and he tilted his head slightly as he studied her and tried to figure out what was on her mind. Then he mentally shook himself for even giving a crap about her feelings and stepped past her to go sit at the small table by the window.

He had to move aside a pile of comic books to make room for them to play on – the same ones Rude had lent him, which he had then passed on to her when she told him she was bored sitting in her room all day with nothing to do. He glanced over his shoulder at her as he sat down, and noticed a blush creeping up into her cheeks when he caught her staring at him.

"Were you checking out my ass, yo?" he asked her in a playful voice, giving her a wink and one of his trademark grins. She shook her head, the color of her cheeks growing darker as she moved to take her own seat across from him, and he laughed and she sat down, refusing to look him in the eye.

Reno knew he shouldn't be flirting with her, or even spending as much time with her as he had been the past several days, but he couldn't help himself. Being around her gave him this weird feeling he just couldn't describe, and until he was able to get to the bottom of just what that feeling was, he was content to damn the risks and sit with her while they played cards and talked.

At first, the conversation had been awkward. Since she had no recollection of anything that had happened prior to when they found her, he had given her a brief history lesson on the major happenings in and around Midgar, starting with the whole Sephiroth incident and leading up to the city's destruction and the birth of the new industrial capitol, Edge. She listened intently to every word he said, asking questions every now and then about the places and people he had been talking about, and he could see it in her eyes how much she was coming back to life with everything she learned.

"Oh! I almost forgot," she exclaimed, raising a hand to her mouth at her outburst. Reno looked at her and saw a slight blush coloring her cheeks as she cleared her throat and continued speaking in a calmer voice. "I remembered something this morning."

"You did?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. He was excited for her, but the prospect of her remembering who she was and where she came from also brought a certain amount of dread upon him. _Why_ he was dreading it was beyond him, though. Maybe because with the knowledge that she was regaining her memories also came the knowledge that she would likely go back to that life – and a part of him didn't want that. He was still unsure about Rufus' motives for bringing her to their headquarters rather than letting her stay in the hospital, but a part of him had grown somewhat accustomed to their daily meetings. If nothing else, he would definitely regret not being able to ignore his regular duties any more.

She nodded. "I remembered my full name," she told him with a sort of half-smile that caused his stomach to lurch in an unusual way that it hadn't before around her up until that moment. "Well, my full _first_ name, anyway."

Reno tilted his head slightly as he looked at her. "I thought you said you remembered them calling you Cera before?"

"I did, and I do," she clarified for him. "It's just that I've remembered Cera is actually shorter for something else."

"And what's that?" he asked her.

"Ceraluci."

"Ceraluci?" He repeated, carefully pronouncing each syllable.

"Yes," she confirmed with a nod. "I remembered meeting someone, and I told them that was my name."

"Remembered meeting who?" he wondered aloud.

She shrugged. "Can't really say. He was probably average height... dark hair, glasses – not the best-looking guy in the world – and I remember he had this voice that just grated on my every last nerve."

Reno's eyes widened slightly at her description of the man. He knew someone who could fit every characteristic she had mentioned, down to that annoying voice.

"Was he a doctor?" he asked carefully. She sat there for a moment, her brow furrowing in concentration as she tried to remember, then sighed deeply.

"I don't know. He might have been. He wore some sort of a lab coat."

_Hojo_, Reno though. _But how the hell was he involved with her?_

An idea came into his mind even as he thought the question, and it forced him to take another look at the girl sitting across from him. Hojo was a scientist employed by ShinRa. She was found in a ShinRa research center. It begged the question: What sort of experiments were they doing on _her_? The entire idea made him sick to his stomach. To think that she had probably been taken away from her family at a young age so that deluded maniac could use her as a lab rat made him wish Hojo was still alive so he could snap his neck, personally.

"Reno?"

Her voice brought him out of his thoughts of revenge and sent his thinking pattern in an entirely different direction.

_So what if she was experimented on? Plenty of others were, too, and you didn't give a shit about any of them. What makes her so different? Why is she special?_

He shook his head and did his best to smile at her, but he knew it looked as forced as it felt.

"Sorry. I was just trying to think if I knew anyone like that or not."

She eyed him for a moment, and he could tell from the look on her face that she wasn't buying into his excuse. Instead of calling him on it, though, she simply shrugged and removed the playing cards from their box, prompting him to sigh softly in relief.

"You know," she finally said, her lips forming into a smirk as she shuffled the cards. "I was wondering something about you."

"Oh?" Reno asked as he watched her hands. He had just taught her how to play poker, but she had caught on quickly and even shuffled with more flair than he did. It made him wonder if she had worked in a betting parlor before losing her memory.

"Everyone wants to know _my_ name," she stated, dealing them their cards. "But what about you?"

"What about me?" he asked as he reached for the cards she had laid in front of him. Her hand reached across the table and settled on his, causing another startling lurch in his stomach, and he swallowed a bit uneasily as he met her eyes.

"I want to know your name."

"It's Reno," he teased her. "You know that. Or have you forgotten?"

Cera shook her head. "Your _full_ name, Reno."

He looked away from her, staring at the cards under his hand, his expression turning from playful to bitter in a matter of seconds.

"I don't use my last name."

"But you still _have_ one," she pointed out.

He shook his head. "I don't use it, which means it isn't important."

"Why don't you use it?" she asked. She started caressing his hand with her thumb, and he hand to pull himself away from her. He looked up into her eyes and saw a flicker of embarrassment in them as she drew her own hand back, placing it in her lap He wanted to tell her she didn't do anything wrong, that it was okay, but his own reaction to that simple gesture had scared the hell out of him. One touch, one reassuring caress, and he was just about ready to spill his guts to her.

"I don't like my last name," he informed her. "I think it's ridiculous."

It wasn't a total lie, but it was only partly true, as well. He did think his last name was stupid. Because it was a bit unusual, people always either asked him how to spell it or how to pronounce it. Reno, on the other had was easy – easy to spell, easy to say, easy to remember, easy to forget. The _true_ reason he didn't use his last name, though, went deeper than something as superficial as thinking it was dumb. It was his father's name. He'd hated the man for most of his life, ever since he walked out on him and his mom when he was a kid. Then his mother had died, and he hated his father even more for not giving enough of a damn to come back for him.

"I'll make you a deal," she offered with a smirk that could almost rival one of his when he was up to no good. "If I win this hand, you have to tell me your last name."

"And what if _I_ win?" Reno asked her, raising an eyebrow suspiciously. She shrugged in response.

"You decide."

It was a loaded statement if he ever heard one, and as soon as it came out of her mouth his head was swimming with images of every improper thing he wanted to do to her. The first thing he thought of was bending her over the very table they were sitting at and...

_Stop it!_ He scolded himself. _You **do not** want to fuck her!_

But he knew that was a lie, too. She was a half-decent-looking girl – _more_ than half-decent, really – and he was a guy with a libido as unruly as his hair.

"Well?" she prodded him with that single word and a smile as she leaned forward, bending her arm on the table and resting her chin in the palm of her hand. "What do you want if you win, Reno?"

"Dinner," he said before he could stop himself.

"Dinner?" she asked, eyebrows moving upward slightly. "You mean, like a date?"

Reno shrugged in reply. "You eat. I eat. We could eat together for one meal without it being a date."

He watched her as she considered his offer for a moment before slowly nodding as she picked up her cards. He mirrored her action, fanning his own hand of card before his eyes and smirking at his good fortune. Two kings and two sevens. One more of either and he had a full house, or at the very least he'd end up with two pair. His eyes flickered to her face as he caught her staring at her cards, deep in concentration, rolling her bottom lip between her teeth.

"I'll take one," he told her, pulling the mismatched card from his hand and sliding it, face-down, across the table toward her. She nodded absently and gave him a single card off the top of the pile, then discarded three of her own, replacing them with a relieved sigh. He raised an eyebrow at her in curiosity, picking up his card and grinning triumphantly as he was rewarded with the seven of clubs.

"What do you have?" Cera asked him, and he laid his card out for her to see.

"Full house," he announced. "So, what kind of food do you like? I know this place that makes the best authentic Wutaian cuisine in the area."

"Not so fast," she scolded, fanning out her own cards on the table in front of her. Reno looked down in horror to find four queens staring back at him. He swallowed uneasily and looked up to find her brown eyes sparkling with suppressed laughter.

"So... About that name of yours," she purred, tracing her finger over the visage of the queen of hearts as she grinned at him. Thinking fast, Reno quickly looked at his watch and stood from his seat at the same time.

"Damn, I gotta go. Big meeting to attend. Guess I just lost track of time, yo. We'll continue this later, okay?"

He spoke rapidly, backing up toward the door even as she rose from her own chair and began advancing on him. He put on a sheepish grin and shrugged helplessly, giving her his best innocent look as he attempted to escape.

"Not so fast," she reprimanded him, moving quickly to block his path. "I won. You owe me payment."

"I really gotta go." Reno insisted, attempting to step around her. She side-stepped back and forth, blocking his path each time and smiling in amusement.

"I'm not letting you by until you tell me you last name, Reno," she announced once he had finally stopped trying to strafe his way around her. The redheaded Turk sighed deeply, his shoulders slumping in defeat, and her grin grew even wider.

Reno waited until he saw her relax, and then he seized the opportunity to lunge around her, heading for the door. Unfortunately, she was one step closer to it than he was, and managed to back herself up against it just as his hand encircled the doorknob.

"Move, Cera," he told her, his tone mildly threatening. She simply shook her head in reply.

Reno wasn't sure how to react to their sudden closeness. At first he was surprised. He had never realized just how tall she was until that moment. She was probably close to the same height as Cloud, which was unusually tall for a woman, but still shorter than he was by at least three inches. He also noticed a bit of a scar forming where the gash in her head had been, and some unusual flecks of color in her brown eyes. They were almost burgundy, contrasting a great deal with the expected flecks of gold he found in her irises.

She reached up to touch his face with her right hand and he flinched slightly, his left hand automatically coming up to grip her wrist as she traced her fingertips along the carefully arched line across his cheek. She gasped at his reaction, the way his fingers dug into her skin, and he quickly let go.

"Sorry," he apologized, hoping he hadn't hurt her too much. "I'm just not used to people doing that."

"It's okay," she said quietly and gave him a small smile as she repeated the action of running her fingertips over the mark, causing a small shiver to run up his spine.

"You know," she mused, tilting her head to the side and repeating the same action upon the mark on the other side of his face, "I thought they were scars, at first. Then I noticed how perfectly symmetrical the are, so I thought they couldn't possibly be scars. And now," she traced them both at the same time and Reno closed his eyes, swallowing uneasily. "They don't _feel_ like scars at all, so I'm certain they can't be. Tattoos?"

Reno nodded, keeping his eyes closed as he tried to heed the warning of the little voice in the back of his head even as another was screaming to kiss her.

"I was named the leader of a gang when I was sixteen," he explained without looking at her. "The tattoos were a mark of my status."

Cera nodded, her hands falling away from his face, and Reno opened his eyes to see her looking at him with a mixture of desire and fear etched upon her features. She blushed when he caught her staring at him like that, looking away and tucking a loose strand of her long black hair behind her ear. Before he could stop himself, he reached out and placed his hand under her chin, turning her head back toward him.

_What the hell are you doing?_

The rational part of him screamed for him to stop, but he wasn't about to start listening to it, not with the way her lips parted so invitingly as her eyes met his again. He moved toward her, her hands flattening against his chest as their mouths grew closer, and he saw her eyes flutter closed as her warm breath blew across his skin in a sigh. His eyes fell closed just as he started closing the distance, their lips brushing and causing her to gasp softly and pull back reflexively in surprise. Reno smiled as he started leaning closer to her once more, when suddenly his phone rang.

Cera's eyes flew open and she looked up at him, startled. They stared at each other for a moment as his phone kept ringing, until it became apparent that whoever it was wouldn't give up until someone answered. Reno pulled the phone from his pocket, glanced down at the caller ID, and swore under his breath when he found the call was coming from Rufus Shinra's office. Giving her an apologetic look, he took a step back away from her and opened the portable handset, bringing it to his ear.

"Yo."

"Reno, what are you doing?" came the smooth baritone of the ShinRa corporation's president.

"What do you mean?" the redhead asked, feigning innocence.

"Don't play coy with me, I can see you. You were about to kiss her, weren't you?"

Reno's entire body became more alert at the statement, and he began looking around the room for some sort of camera. It was the only way Rufus could possibly know exactly what was going on in that room.

"Behind the mirror, Reno," came his employer's voice, answering the question he had only asked in his mind.

Keeping the phone to his ear, Reno walked over to the mirror Cera had been inspecting herself in earlier. Propping the handset between his ear and his shoulder, he pulled the reflective glass away from the wall and peeked behind it. There, mounted in the wall, was a security camera, and a glance at the back of the glass confirmed it was a one-way mirror.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered under his breath, looking over his shoulder at Cera, who was watching him intently, her eyes full of curiosity. Rufus was obviously spying on her every move, and it irked him to know that he'd been watching them all along.

"Meet me in my office immediately," he heard Rufus order before the line went dead in his ear.

Reno closed the handset and placed it back in his jacket pocket as he looked Cera over with a sigh. She was still gazing at him with a question in her eyes, confusion over what the conversation he had just had had been about. It struck him how innocent she seemed, standing there in that immaculate white dress Rufus had picked for her to wear, and he cursed himself for having wanted to taint that purity by kissing her.

"I have to go," he answered her unasked question. She nodded, stepping away slightly from the door, and Reno crossed the room to stand before her again. He hesitated a moment, then leaned closer and kissed her cheek.

"It's Auchenleck," he whispered before standing up straight again and going to the door.

"What?" Cera asked, turning to him as he turned the doorknob and took a step out into the hall.

"My name," he told her as he looked back at her over his shoulder. "It's Reno _Auchenleck_."

She smiled at him, and he felt that weird sensation in his stomach once more as he smiled back at her. For a moment, they simply remained looking at one another. Then, with a sigh, Reno stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him before beginning the trip up to the top floor and Rufus Shinra's office.

* * *

Pronunciations For Names

Ceraluci - pronounced like, "Sarah-Lucy"; Cera is pronounced like "Sarah."

Auchenleck - pronounced like, "ow-ken-leck"


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Rufus Shinra stood at the windowed back wall of his office on the top floor of the new ShinRa headquarters, staring out over the rapidly growing city of Edge that sprawled out before him, hands clasped behind his back as he waited for Reno. He knew that having a surveillance camera installed in the suite he had moved Cera to would prove to be an asset, although he had hoped he would have caught her displaying some sort of remarkable abilities rather than witnessing the blossoming relationship she had with one of his trusted Turks. He had learned at a young age, however, that when things don't go your own way, you _make_ them, and so had decided that perhaps he could use their mutual attraction to his benefit.

"President Rufus, Reno is here to see you," came a slightly high-pitched voice over the intercom on his desk. The blonde man turned around from the view and pressed a button, bending slightly over his desk to speak into the receiver.

"Show him in, Clara," he ordered his secretary, then walked over to the wet bar and poured himself a scotch. The office door opened and closed a moment later without a sound.

"What, Reno? No attempts to pick up my latest secretary for a quick shag?" the young president asked as he poured a second drink for his companion.

"I didn't think you would appreciate me scaring her away so soon after you hired her, yo," the redhead drawled as he flopped down into one of the chairs reserved for guests, propping his feet up on his employer's large, expensive desk.

"It never stopped you before," Rufus pointed out as he passed the second drink to the redhead and shoved his feet off his furniture. Reno merely shrugged and stared at the amber-colored liquid in his glass. "You must be losing your touch."

"What was it you wanted to speak to me about?" the Turk asked, setting the alcohol down on the desk before him and leaning back in the chair. He knew better than to drink when he was on the clock, and wasn't about to give Rufus _another_ excuse to punish him.

"Your relationship with Cera," the president began, moving to sit once more in his own chair on the opposite side of the desk. "It seems to be progressing rather nicely."

"I guess," Reno muttered, forcing himself to conceal the disgust he felt with the confirmation that his employer _had _been spying on them the entire time, after all.

"You_ do_ realize that it cannot go anywhere... Don't you, Reno?" Rufus asked, and Reno knew it was a rhetorical question. Of course it couldn't go anywhere. Not with him watching their every move.

"I know, sir," he responded simply, holding the younger man's gaze steadily. He refused to show him any sign of regret for having admitted that he wasn't going to get what he wanted, even though he wasn't quite sure exactly what that was when it came to her.

"There is something I think you should know concerning her," Rufus stated, opening one of the drawers in his desk and removing a plain manila folder, which he then placed before himself. Reno raised an eyebrow, sitting up straighter in his chair as his employer opened the folder and flipped past the first few loose pages before removing a small, rectangular piece of paper and sliding it across to him.

Reno hesitated a moment before picking up the paper and examining it. He looked from the document to the man in the pristine white suit seated across from him, then back to the page, shaking his head slightly in confusion.

"Sir, this is your birth certificate," he stated, placing the paper back on the desk.

"I am aware of that, Reno," Rufus replied, pointing to the document once more. "Look at it again, and make sure you take particular notice of the date and time."

Reno sighed in exasperation, rolling his eyes slightly as he picked up Rufus Shinra's birth certificate once more and gave it a more thorough reading. He had no idea what he was getting to, but he knew better than to question the motives of someone with that much power.

"December 18th, 1975," he read aloud so Rufus wouldn't question if he actually _had _read it. "Three thirty-two a.m."

"Thank you," Rufus said, holding an open hand across the top of the desk. Reno placed the document in his palm and he placed it back into the folder, pulling out another page of similar size and shape.

"Now look at this one," he instructed as he passed it over. Reno snatched the page from his hand, not caring any more if Rufus became angry with him. He was sick of these little games, and wished that – for once – his employer could just tell him something without making a huge spectacle of it. He skimmed over the information quickly, seeking out the time and date of birth in the same location it had been on the previous document.

"December 18th, 1975, three thirty-eight a.m."

He looked up at Rufus, who simply nodded back at the paper he was holding. "Read the name."

"Give me a fucking break," Reno muttered under his breath as he looked at the paper and read the name aloud.

"Baby Girl Shinra."

He blinked a few times, then his eyes squinted and he looked from the page up to Rufus once more. He knew what this meant, but he still didn't quite believe it.

"You're a _twin_?" he asked.

"So it would seem," Rufus answered coolly. "Unfortunately, this is a detail I was not aware of until recently."

He pulled yet another, slightly larger document from the folder and passed it to Reno. Without a word, the redhead took it and began looking it over carefully.

"A.. death certificate?" he wondered aloud to himself as he looked it over. "Baby Girl Shinra – date of death, December 18th, 1975, three forty-two a.m. So... She died?"

"That is what my father would have me believe," Rufus replied bitterly. "You see, he _had_ his heir when I was born. What use would a second child ever be to him – particularly a _female_ child?"

Reno shook his head slightly. "Sorry, man... I don't get what you're trying to get at here with all this."

Rufus sighed in annoyance and flipped to the back of the folder on his desk, removing a small stack of envelopes held together by a rubber band and tossing them in Reno's direction.

"I found those letters hidden away in a secret compartment of this desk. They are to my father, from a Doctor Ellia Krause, and they contain references to his daughter and some sort of experiments that were being done on her."

Reno looked at the pile of letters he held in his hands and his eyes went wide as the pieces of the puzzle finally started to come together. He still had a hard time believing it, though. How could someone as sweet and innocent as her be related to a cold, calculating bastard like him?

"You're shitting me, right?" he asked before he could stop himself.

Rufus shook his head, his face remaining completely composed.

"No, Reno. This is no joke. Cera is my sister."

**

* * *

**

Cera sat at the small table in her room, using the cards Reno had left behind to play a game of solitaire. She found it amusing, the things she remembered when so little of her remained. She could remember how to play a card game, but she couldn't recall who taught her how to play. That slight flash of a memory she had had earlier in the day – where she remembered introducing herself to that man – gave her hope, however. It was starting to come back to her, little by little, and she had faith that soon she would be well enough to go home... wherever home was.

She knew she would regret leaving, though, if for no other reason than it would mean leaving Reno behind. She knew she shouldn't let herself become attached to him. For all she knew, she had a husband and three children waiting for her somewhere. She couldn't help it, though. Something in the way he looked at her with that roguish smile, his red hair falling into his clear blue eyes, made her heart pound so hard she thought it might burst out of her chest.

A part of her wanted to simply believe that it was nothing more than an innocent crush, a case of lust brought on by being cooped up for who knows how long in that place where they found her. The thought of even being there gave her an uneasy chill. Rufus had explained to her that it was a research facility, and that human experimentation was not uncommon among the things that went on there. He asked her, time and again, if she remembered anything about what they might have been doing to her there, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't remember.

She flipped over the next three cards and found the ace of diamonds looking up at her. She ran her fingertips over the red diamond, staring at it intently as a similar symbol flickered in her mind's eye. The ShinRa logo... she had seen it before coming to this place. She recalled seeing it branded on some sort of equipment and printed on papers that she had read while there. It didn't make any sense, though. If she was being held in a facility owned and operated by ShinRa, shouldn't the president of the corporation know _exactly_ what had happened to her and why she was there? It was apparent that he _didn't_ know. Why else would he keep sending people to talk to her? The lack of memory was frightening on its own, but Rufus having no knowledge of the things being done by people under his employ was even more disturbing.

The first person he had sent to speak with her came while she was still in her old room. He was an older man, probably somewhere in his early-to-mid-thirties, with dark hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail that just barely reached below his shoulder blades. He had seemed rather strict, a by-the-book type who only ever considered one answer to be the right one. He never lost his patience with her, however, no matter how many times he asked her questions she simply could not answer for him.

A few days after she had been moved into her new suite, Rufus sent a different person to interrogate her. This time, he had selected a young, blonde woman. Perhaps he felt that she was having trouble opening up because she was uncomfortable talking to a man. The truth of the matter was, she couldn't open up to _anyone_. The woman had been nice enough, though. She had introduced herself as Elena, and informed Cera that the other man, Tseng, was her and Reno's boss.

Reno... Her mind went back to the redhead once more and she sighed to herself. Out of all the people who had visited her since she arrived here, he was the only one she truly felt comfortable around. Perhaps it was because he was there without an agenda. He only came by to spend time with her, not to try to pry into her past. Yet, a part of her knew there was more to it than just that. There was more to it than mere physical attraction, too. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something about him simply drew her to him.

That was what scared her most of all. The bond between them had been growing steadily stronger at an alarming rate. They had only known each other for a few short weeks, and she already felt comfortable enough with him that it was as if they had known each other most of their lives. She found herself talking to him easily, and wanting to share every little thing she remembered with him before telling anyone else. He was so laid back and open, and there were no false pretenses from him. She trusted him, above anyone else she had met since coming here, and just being around him made her feel somehow a bit safer.

For a moment, she considered that maybe she was starting to develop more than just friendly feelings toward him, but quickly pushed the notion aside. Despite spending time with him on a daily basis, she really didn't know much about him at all. His past was as much of a mystery to her as her own. _He_ could be married, for all she knew. There had been no ring on his hand, however... but that didn't mean anything. He flirted with her occasionally, but men with wives flirted just the same as bachelors at times.

Cera gathered up the cards he had left behind and placed the deck aside before leaning forward to rest her arms on the table. She laid her head against her forearms and closed her eyes, and the first thing that popped into her mind was his face. With a heavy sigh, she sat back up and leaned her head back, her eyes still closed as she let out a quiet, humorless laugh. There was no point in trying to convince herself that there wasn't any way anything could happen between them, because a part of her had already started to fall in love with the boisterous redhead known as Reno Auchenleck.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Reno grumbled under his breath as he exited the elevator and made his way down the hall to Cera's suite. He still had a hard time believing what Rufus had told him about her, but his employer had supplied more than enough evidence to support the idea that she really _was_ his sister. He'd only gotten a chance to read a couple of the letters in the stack Rufus had tossed at him before they were taken away from him, but Reno had read enough to know that she was part of some sort of experiment involving genetic manipulation.

Rufus had brought up a diagram of Cera's DNA on the computer screen for him to look at, but it hadn't been like any sort of DNA Reno had ever seen before. The young president explained – in a rather bored manner – that her genes had been mutated somehow, probably as the result of whatever they had been doing to her in that facility. He also informed Reno that there were actually two distinctive types of mutations, and while the ShinRa scientists were still trying to put their fingers on one of them, they had identified the other as having been caused by Jenova cells.

Reno had quietly freaked out in the back of his mind at that news, all the while keeping his outward appearance calm and composed. A Jenova mutation in Cera's blood was a bad omen. The company had spent a lot of time and money destroying every last remnant of that damn thing, and now here she was with more of it inside her. He feared for her life, and it must have shown in his eyes because Rufus assured him that no one would lay a hand on Cera so long as he was in charge of the company.

Then he had asked Reno to attempt to succeed where others had failed before him by getting her to remember and talk about what happened in her past. Reno couldn't help but laugh at the request, because he knew damn well that Tseng and Elena had _both_ tried their hand at extracting that very same information from her. He suggested having Rude give it a shot, instead, but Rufus just shook his pretty blonde head and insisted it _had_ to be Reno.

"Why me, yo?" the redhead had asked, whining slightly.

"She trusts you, Reno," Rufus told him.

Of course, he ended up agreeing to do it, but only because when Rufus Shinra tells you to do something, you _do_ it. He still wasn't comfortable with it, though, and that in itself bothered him more than the abuse of her trust. He was a fucking _Turk_. They lied and manipulated people all the time. This was no different. He just had to treat it like it was any other assignment Rufus had sent him on and ignore the unpleasant feelings in the pit of his stomach until he was off for the evening and could go get drunk enough that he wouldn't be able to feel guilty for betraying her.

He decided against taking a direct approach. After all, Tseng and Elena had both tried that without any results to show for it. Besides, Rufus had told him to not be obvious, that he should just act natural. He almost laughed at that. For him, natural would mean hitting on her, taking her home, fucking her senseless, and then promptly forgetting to call her back the next day. Somehow, though, he sincerely doubted that was what Rufus wanted him doing to his kid sister. He just wanted answers.

With a deep sigh, Reno knocked on the door to Cera's suite and took a step back, placing his hands in his pockets as he waited for her to answer the door. He steeled himself for their meeting, knowing it was bound to be awkward after the way he had left her before, and knowing that Rufus had a point when he said they couldn't be together – especially now – no matter what his body might be telling him to the contrary.

The door opened before him and he looked up to find her standing between it and the door frame, looking at him with her head tilted to one side in curiosity. He normally didn't come back to see her after leaving for the day, a small fact he hadn't considered when he marched himself right back down to her suite after his meeting with Rufus.

"I figured I owed you an explanation," he told her, thinking quickly.

"About what?" she asked, resting her head against the door. Reno felt his stomach starting to turn itself into knots as he looked at her, remembering how close they had come to kissing.

"About why I hate my last name," he said, his voice coming out in the seductive tone he used when he was trying to convince some girl at the bar to go home with him. It was an odd phrase to be saying like that, but if it had the desired effect, he wouldn't worry about it.

"I see," she said, averting her eyes and blushing slightly. "Come in."

She stepped back from the doorway and held the door open for him, closing it once he entered and walking around to stand in front of him. They stood there for a minute in silence, staring at one another as they both recalled the last time they'd been standing so close in that very place.

"Would you care for some tea?" she asked him, finally breaking the silence. He smiled at her playing the good little hostess, but politely declined with a shake of his head.

Cera nodded and tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, blushing again and turning away from him to go sit at the table where they usually played cards. She felt like a fool, being around him and not knowing what to say, but what _did_ one say to the man they nearly kissed? She wondered if she had just imagined the tone of voice he had used when telling her what he wanted to discuss, if it had merely been a trick her hormones had decided to play on her imagination.

"So why is it you hate your last name?" she asked without looking at him, hoping that if they got the conversation over and done with quickly he would leave so she would be able to bury her feelings for him once more. "I thought you said you thought it was stupid and that's why you didn't like it."

"Well, that's _one_ reason I don't like it, yo," Reno clarified as he pulled out the chair across from hers, turning it around backwards and setting it close to her own seat before straddling it. He'd noticed she was trying to avoid making eye contact, which was a bad thing when he was trying to get her to open up to him, and figured that perhaps physical closeness might help her open up some more.

"I see," Cera said quietly, her eyes darting to him briefly as he moved to sit nearer to her. Her heart started beating faster from the proximity of his body to hers, close enough that she could smell his cologne. She'd been too wrapped up in his eyes and his lips to notice it before, but now that she wasn't looking at him, she was captivated by its woodsy, musky scent.

"I hate my last name because it's my father's last name," he admitted to her, and she could hear it in the tone of his voice that this was a rather touchy subject for him. Her eyes immediately went to his face and she chanced a look into his clear blue eyes to find them full of suppressed anger and grief.

"You don't have to tell me any more, Reno," she informed him.

Reno shook his head, sighing. "I want to. I've kept it bottled up so long, I _need_ to tell someone about it, ya know?"

"But why me?" she asked, her brow furrowing slightly. "Surely you could tell one of your comrades about it."

Reno laughed at her suggestion. "My _comrades_?"

"Yes," Cera replied, blushing again. "You know, one of the other Turks."

"We ain't exactly that close, yo," he told her, which was a lie. He and Rude were practically like brothers.

She nodded wordlessly, and they fell into silence once again. Reno found himself staring at her and smiling. She was a good-looking girl, fair-skinned with dark hair and soft brown eyes – more or less the opposite of Rufus with his blonde-haired, blue-eyed looks. He desperately searched for some sort of family resemblance, but nothing seemed to fit. The shape of her face, the size of her nose... it was all wrong. He supposed that it was probably normal, though, since they obviously weren't _identical_ twins.

"Reno?"

He snapped back to reality, his eyes focusing on hers as a guilty smile spread across his lips.

"Sorry," he apologized, leaning forward and placing his arm on the table, bending it at the elbow and propping his head in his hand. "Anyway, like I was saying..."

"Your last name is the same as your father's," Cera filled in the rest for him. "And I'm guessing the two of you don't exactly get along."

"I haven't seen him since I was three years old," Reno stated matter-of-factly, his voice devoid of emotion. One look in his eyes showed her it was an act, though. The raw hatred she saw in them was enough to send a slight chill down her spine. In that moment, she realized Reno was _not_ someone whose bad side you wanted to get on.

"What happened?" she asked before she could stop herself.

Reno shrugged. "One day my parents were happy, the next they were screaming at each other. Then my dad walked out on me and my mom, and that's the last I heard of him."

"And your mother?"

Reno sighed, closing his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, Cera noticed the drastic shift in his mood from anger to depression.

"She died when I was twelve."

"I'm so sorry, Reno," she told him. She started to reach for him, wanting to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, but stopped herself, thinking it would probably just put them in another awkward situation like before.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for," he assured her. "It wasn't your fault, yo."

Cera laughed quietly, and Reno turned his head to look at her, his eyes narrowing as he glared humorously at her.

"What's so funny?"

"You," she said, smiling. "The way you keep saying 'yo' all the time."

"Are you making fun of my manner of speech?" he asked, putting on a stuffy accent for her and making her laugh again.

"No, I think it's adorable," she told him, honestly.

"Ohhh... So you think I'm adorable, huh?" he asked, turning on his natural charm. "So does that mean I still get that dinner even though I lost the bet?"

Cera looked at him, wondering if he was being serious or just joking around. He seemed like the type to mess with people, but something about the way he said it made her think he might actually be asking her out on a date. She weighed her options, chewing on her bottom lip in thought. Saying yes would only lead to her ending up getting in deeper over her head when it came to him, but saying no might very well break his heart and she didn't want that, either.

"Seriously?" she asked him quietly, needing to hear him actually confirm that he was asking her on a date.

"Yeah," Reno replied, just as quietly, all of the humor suddenly gone from his voice. "Have dinner with me."

Cera stared at him for a moment before nodding slowly.

"Alright. I will."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Reno paced the hall outside Cera's suite, trying desperately to pull himself together. He wasn't nervous about their date, if he could really call it that since they were just having dinner there instead of actually going out. What was _really_ bothering him was the last-minute instructions Rufus had given him.

No sex, which was pretty much a given with Rufus watching their every move. Not that he had anything against being watched in that situation, but he didn't want his _boss_ doing the watching. He also wasn't to try to kiss her or touch her in some overtly romantic way. Reno had raised an eyebrow at that order, wondering why Rufus was so keen on playing the over-protective brother so much with her. She was twenty-four years old, after all, and fully capable of making her own decisions about things like kissing and holding hands. Reno didn't press the issue, though, merely nodded in agreement.

Then Rufus had given his final instruction, and Reno had started to panic. The young president wanted his fast-talking Turk to get her to remember something, _anything_ about what went on in that research facility. That was his mission, and he was not to come back to see his employer until it was finished. Reno worried about what the consequences might be if he _couldn't_ get Cera to remember something during the course of their dinner. Of course, the punishment couldn't really be anything too drastic. After all, Rufus needed him. He was the only person she trusted enough to talk to.

Cera watched him through the peephole in her door as he walked back and forth in front of her door, running a hand back through his untamed red hair every now and then. It was actually a bit comforting to see him in such a state, knowing that he was just as nervous as she was about having an almost-date with each other. She had asked Rufus earlier in the day what to expect from Reno, and he had frowned slightly and warned her not to expect much of anything from him. Reno treated women like condoms – use them once, then throw them away. It was a rather crude analogy, which she had pointed out to him, and he merely shrugged and told her he felt it was rather fitting for Reno.

Her lips parted slightly as she looked him over thoroughly, thinking that if Reno really _did_ want her the way Rufus implied, she probably wouldn't put up much of a fight. He was slightly taller than her and moved with a graceful swagger across the floor. The navy blue Turk uniform was cut for someone with a more muscular build and hung off his lithe form, hiding what lie beneath for the most part, but his shirt was unbuttoned far enough to show the lean muscles of his chest. She felt desire welling in her, urging her to open the door and touch him, and she shut her eyes quickly to block those feeling out.

A sharp knocking a moment later startled her eyes open again with a small gasp, and she paused briefly before opening the door and meeting Reno's casually flirtatious gaze with one of her own.

"Hey, babe," he said in that drawling tone of voice that made her want to melt. "Sorry I kept you waiting, yo. The boss man wanted to see me about a mission."

"It's okay," she assured him, smiling knowingly. So he didn't want to admit he'd been pacing nervously outside her door? Then she didn't have to admit she had been checking him out while he was doing it.

She stepped aside and allowed him to come in, closing the door behind him, and they once again found themselves standing awkwardly in the same position they'd been in a week before when he had come back to tell her why he hated his name.

"We really gotta stop doing this," Reno said with a small chuckle.

"Doing what?"

"Standing here awkwardly, thinking about how we _almost_ kissed each other."

"Oh," she said, a blush rising on her cheeks. She walked past him and over to the table that had been set up for their dinner. Rufus had spared no expense, and had his private chefs make them the most delectable dishes he could think of.

"What the hell is this?" Reno asked, pointing to a bowl full of what appeared to be little, black beads.

"I think it's caviar, but I'm not touching it to find out," she replied with a laugh. "Honestly, I would have been happy with just some Wutaian takeout."

Reno smiled at her. It was good to know she didn't share her brother's more stuck-up tastes. Moreover, it was good to know she seemed to have the same tastes _he_ did.

"You like Wutaian food?" he asked her, his hand slipping into the pocket of his jacket to retrieve his cell phone.

Cera nodded. "Although I can't say I remember ever actually _eating_ it before, I know that I _do_ like it."

Reno grinned and hit the speed dial button for his favorite takeout place, then placed an order with the girl who answered and stepped over to Cera, bending down to kiss her cheek.

"I gotta go meet them downstairs, yo. Company policy states they can't come up here. I'll be back soon, okay?"

Cera couldn't answer him. She simply stood there mutely and watched him leave, her hand rising to caress her cheek, which she swore was tingling where he had kissed it.

**

* * *

**

The two of them spent the evening sitting on the floor next to the spread Rufus had provided, talking and laughing as they ate out of the paper takeout containers. Reno had let her try some of his food, feeing it to her with his fingers, and she had blushed at the erotic undertones of the gesture before returning the favor for him. He had actually sucked on her fingers briefly before remembering Rufus' warning, and immediately apologized to her for his forwardness.

"It's okay," she told him, her voice a bit breathless. Reno wanted to lean forward and kiss her then and there, but the threat of Rufus punishing him with three months' worth of desk duty kept him from closing the distance between them.

"You know, I can't imagine what you're going through."

Cera cocked her head to one side, curious at his sudden change in demeanor. "What do you mean?"

"Not having any memory of your past," he clarified. "It must me frustrating as hell, yo."

She shrugged slightly, taking a sip of the wine Rufus had provided for them to drink.

"The thing is... I'm not sure I _want_ to know."

"Really?" Reno asked her, unconsciously moving closer to where she was sitting.

"If my memory is gone, maybe it's for a good reason," she told him. "Maybe something happened to me, something _bad_, and the people responsible for erasing my memory did it because they didn't want me to remember what happened."

"Maybe," Reno agreed. "But doesn't it just suck, not being able to remember your parents or any of your other family, or friends?"

"I... don't think I _had_ any parents, Reno," she whispered, her eyes downcast.

"You don't?"

"No," she replied, shaking her head and looking back up at him. "It's strange, but I have this gut feeling that I never knew my parents, even before."

"Then how'd you grow up into such a fine young woman?" he asked her with a wink.

"Well, _someone_ obviously raised me. I just don't know who."

"You can't remember anything about them at all?"

"No, not a thing."

"You sure?"

"You're just full of questions tonight, aren't you?"

The question was asked with a spark of humor in her voice, but Reno started to grow nervous, just the same. The minute she realized he was fishing for information, his entire relationship with her would go down the drain.

"I'm just curious," he told her, shrugging innocently.

"Why do you say 'yo' all the time?" she asked him, turning the tables to take the attention off herself.

"I grew up on the streets of the Midgar slums – Sector Seven, to be exact," he informed her. "Living down there, you pick up all sorts of slang. I guess I just never really grew out of it, yo."

Cera laughed as he ended his explanation with the very word she had asked about, and he laughed with her when he realized what he'd said, as well.

"See? It's like second nature or something. Just comes out at random."

Cera yawned loudly, bringing a hand up quickly to cover her mouth, and Reno grinned at her as he stood from his seat on the floor.

"It's pretty late, and you're obviously tired, so I should probably get going," he told her as she stood with him.

"Oh," she said, unable to conceal her disappointment at his departure. Reno cursed the damn camera behind the mirror, knowing full well if it wasn't there he would be putting the moves on her right there in an attempt to bed her.

"I had a really nice time," she added, then stood there a bit awkwardly with her hands clasped in front of her.

"Me, too," he replied sincerely. Honestly, he couldn't remember when the last _real_ date he'd been on with a woman was, but of the ones he _had _been on, this one had ranked at the top of his list so far. "Maybe we could do it again sometime."

"I'd like that."

Reno smiled at her, all the while mentally kicking himself. He knew better than to try to have any real relationship with the girl, but he couldn't help himself. Rufus be damned, he enjoyed spending time with her. If they ever found out what those scientists were doing to her, maybe she would be allowed to have an actual life, and _then_ he could seriously think about dating her.

He moved over to her and pulled her into his arms, her eyes gazing into his expectantly as they stood there for a long moment before he leaned down and touched his forehead to hers. Her eyes fell closed, her lips parting invitingly, and Reno groaned inwardly, wanting so much to kiss her thoroughly.

"Good night, Cera," he whispered before brushing his lips against hers in the barest ghost of a kiss as he pulled himself away from her.

Cera opened her eyes to look up at his retreating form, his long, red ponytail swaying behind him as he went to the door, and wondered what she'd done wrong. She hadn't thought she imagined the connection between them, and she _knew_ he wanted to kiss her before, so what had changed? With a heavy sigh, she began picking up the remains of their dinner before getting ready for bed.

**

* * *

**

Reno was dreading facing Rufus the next morning. He'd pretty much disobeyed the "hands-off" ordinance given to him the day before, and was already expecting to find an insane amount of boring paperwork in his future. Or worse, perhaps Rufus would forbid him from seeing Cera altogether. It was odd that he would rather do the paperwork than not see her again, especially since they hadn't even kissed yet. Then again, maybe the thrill of the chase was the only real reason he was attracted to her in the first place – she was off-limits, something he couldn't have, a challenge.

"He's not in there at the moment, but said you can wait for him inside," Rufus' chipper secretary greeted him as he approached the double doors of the presidential office. Reno nodded and let himself in, going straight to the chair he had been sitting in when Rufus had divulged the information about Cera being his long-lost twin, and sat down, putting his feet up on the desk. Without the man in charge around, he was free to deface whatever piece of furniture he pleased – and figured he'd better do it before Rufus had him executed for putting the moves on Cera the previous night.

He looked around the room, desperate for something to do that would keep his attention, but Rufus wasn't the sort of person to keep a television or a stereo in his office. He was all about work, and those things only created distractions. Reno was about to give up and take a nap when his eyes fell on the folder sitting on Rufus' desk. His curiosity getting the better of him, he picked it up and began flipping through its contents.

The first few pages contained in the file were the birth certificates and the death certificate Rufus had shown him previously, and he became more interested in the contents as it dawned on him that the file was full of information on Cera. He glanced over his shoulder as if to make sure his employer wasn't standing right behind him, then started skimming the pages of the file in earnest. Most of them were written in a hasty, barely legible scrawl – not Rufus' proper, readable script. A good amount of it was scientific mumbo-jumbo he didn't understand in the least, but from what he could gather she was part of an experiment known as Project V.

He skimmed over pages of hand-written calculations, unable to decipher any of it so that it would make sense, and cursed himself for not being a science whiz. Shaking his head, he flipped past several more pages until he came across one that read DNA Profiling Results across the top. Thanking the gods for a page that was actually printed on a computer, he looked it over more thoroughly and found that it was a comparison of Rufus' DNA to Cera's. He didn't really understand any of the different things listed in the report, but he fully understood the statement printed in bold type across the bottom of the page:

**DNA Relation Match Probability: 0**

"Mother-fucking son of a bitch," Reno muttered as he stared at the test results in his hand, gradually becoming aware of the game Rufus Shinra was playing.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

"Reno, sorry to keep you waiting," Rufus said as he entered the office, closing the door behind himself before making his way to his chair. "Reeve and I had much to discuss and I lost track of the time."

Reno nodded mutely, inwardly fuming about what he had read in that folder, which now sat on Rufus' desk once more, as if it had been untouched in his absence.

"How did your evening with Cera go last night?" the young president asked, and Reno didn't know if it was a sincere question or a trap to see if he would try to lie about what had happened between them.

"It went well, sir," he replied, deciding that if Rufus wanted details, he would have to ask for them specifically.

"Did she remember anything?"

Reno nodded. "She said she knows she had never met her parents."

"Of course," Rufus agreed, nodding. "She was taken away from our parents right after she was born. They never knew her, either."

Reno clenched his jaw to keep from calling Rufus on his lie, and continued to speak calmly after a moment.

"She remembered Hojo," he informed his employer, figuring he didn't need to know that she had given him that bit of information a good while before they had decided on having dinner together.

Rufus nodded slowly, lost in thought. "That makes sense, although the notes I was able to come up with from the site where we found her were written after his death. The experiment she was a part of was referred to heavily as Project V. As you know, Hojo had a... _thing_ for naming his projects in a similar fashion."

"Right," Reno said, doing his best to conceal his annoyance at Rufus for stating the obvious to him like he was still some stupid punk kid off the streets with absolutely no knowledge of the inner workings of the ShinRa corporation.. "Genesis was known as Project G. But what the hell does the V mean, then?"

"I believe it may stand for the source of the second mutation we found in her blood," Rufus suggested.

Reno only half-listened to Rufus ramble on about some plan he had devised to go back into the ruins of the old headquarters in Midgar and attempt to find as much documentation as they could on Project V. The better part of his brain was mulling over the fact that Rufus was using him, and Cera. Reno knew the young president well enough to know that if he thought the girl could somehow be an asset to him, he would do whatever it took her keep her by his side. In this case, 'whatever it took' meant using her attraction to Reno as a means to try to get information out of her, while lying about her parentage to keep the redheaded Turk from trying to really establish any sort of relationship with her.

As Rufus continued to drone on, Reno stretched his long legs and began thinking about Cera. Since she wasn't _really_ Rufus' sister, that meant there was a couple out there somewhere who had been robbed of their child in the name of Shinra's research. Then again, her parents could be dead, for all any of them knew. A part of him felt like she deserved to know the truth, though, and he highly doubted his employer ever planned on _telling_ her the truth – about anything. She was a prisoner, and as much as he hated to admit it, he had had a hand in putting her into that situation. But he'd been played, too, and he wanted to show Rufus that people were not possessions for him to use for his own personal whims.

"I want you to stay away from her, Reno," Rufus stated sternly, his cold blue eyes fixed on the man seated across from him. "You almost crossed a line last night that should never be crossed. I'm going to send you into Midgar to look for the information we need on her."

"Can I at least say goodbye to her?" Reno asked hopefully.

Rufus considered the question for several moments before slowly nodding in agreement.

"Alright, but make it brief. I want you to head to the ruins as soon as possible. You are dismissed."

Rufus opened the folder on his desk and began looking through the pages, and Reno stood, watching him to see if he noticed anything out of place. When he didn't seem to note any discrepancies, the redhead left the president's office and made his way to the first floor, where the security offices were.

During the elevator ride down from the top floor, he wondered what had gotten into him. He was about to do something that could easily jeopardize his career, leaving him branded as a traitor to ShinRa and possibly seeing him sentenced to death by Rufus himself. Somehow, though, he felt that this was what he _had_ to do. Maybe he was just desperate to make up for all the things he'd done wrong in his life, but even if that was the case he doubted that this would be enough to fully redeem himself.

When he reached the first floor, he walked to the security office with a purposeful stride, determined not to back down from this task he'd set for himself. He let himself into the office and greeted the guard stationed before the bank of monitors that showed various places in the ShinRa building. Since he was a Turk, security was part of his domain and the guard didn't even think to question his presence there.

"Hey man, you look tired," Reno said to the other man, taking a seat next to him. "Why don't you go take a break and I'll watch over this stuff for you?"

The guard – a young kid fresh out of the ShinRa military academy – easily agreed to his proposition, and Reno silently thanked Rufus for putting the rookies on security detail. He followed the kid to the door, telling him to take his time as he carefully lifted his ID card out of his pocket, and assured him he had everything covered before sending him on his way.

With the kid guarding the security system gone, Reno set right to work. His eyes scanned the numerous screens as he lowered himself into the seat at the console, searching for the one that showed Cera's room. Once he found it, he logged into the system, using the kid's ID card so it looked like _he _was the one accessing the computers that housed all the security footage.

The first thing he did was edit the video showing what was going on in the hallway between the elevator banks and the security room. Rufus wasn't stupid. If there was any evidence that Reno had been in there, he would be the first person that was suspected of tampering with the footage. Once he had erased the evidence of his presence in the security room, he set to work on the camera in Cera's room, cutting the feed and replacing it with one from another, similar-looking room. Then he performed a similar operation to the camera in the hall outside her room before checking the time stamp on the doctored feed of the hallway outside the security office, making sure there was no sign it had been tampered with.

Satisfied that his tracks had been erased and that he could carry out his plan without anyone knowing what he was up to, he logged out of the system and wiped his prints from the terminal and the young guard's ID card with the sleeve of his jacket, placing the card next to a cold cup of coffee and a half-eaten doughtnut that sat nearby and moving to stand by the door until the guard returned.

"Hey, you forgot your ID, yo," Reno greeted the young man when he returned, pointing to where he had placed it by the terminal. "Better make sure you keep it on you at all times."

"Yes, sir," the guard replied, hastily crossing the room and picking up his ID.

"Just make sure you don't let it happen again," Reno warned him before he left the room and headed for the elevator. Smirking to himself, he rode it up to the floor with Cera's suite on it. Each ding of the elevator as it went up another floor made his stomach tie itself in another knot. Tampering with the surveillance system was the easy part of his plan. He'd done similar jobs numerous times, under Rufus' orders, but he'd never had to convince someone to let him help them _escape_. Usually, he would just shoot them in the head and walk out like nothing happened.

He didn't bother to knock when he reached her door, simply looked around to make sure no one was in the hall to see him slip into her suite. Cera stood as soon as he closed the door behind him, rising from her chair at the table and crossing the room toward him with a smile.

"Reno," she greeted him, her smile falling when she noticed his determined expression. He met her halfway across the room and grabbed her hand, leading her to her bedroom. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he pushed her down into a sitting position on the bed before kneeling before her and taking her other hand in his, as well.

"Do you trust me?" he asked her, his eyes searching hers. She tilted her head to one side in confusion, but nodded after a moment.

"Rufus has been watching your every move. There's a camera planted behind the mirror. He used me to try to get you to open up, hoping you'd remember something about your past. He wants to _use_ you for his own personal gain. I've come to get you the hell out of here, but you have to believe me and do what I say without asking any questions."

The words came out in a fast rush, and she almost didn't understand half of what he was saying. She didn't need to know the words, though. The urgency in his voice told her that he wasn't lying about what he was telling her. Rufus was using her, and using _him_ by the sounds of it. She wondered for a moment if she thought she really could trust him, then slowly nodded.

"Won't he be able to see us right now?" she asked, her eyes flickering briefly toward the mirror before resting on his face once more.

"I doctored the surveillance equipment downstairs," he told her. "Some poor schmuck is gonna take the fall for this, but it ain't gonna be me, yo. I'm going to make sure you're safe."

"Okay," she replied quietly. "Tell me what I have to do."

Reno stood up, pulling her to her feet and leading her to the door of her suite, one of her hands still held securely in his own. He cracked open the door and checked the hallway for any signs of other people, quietly telling her of his plan.

"There's an air duct about twenty feet away from the door. We've gotta get you in it. Then, all you need to do is follow the ventilation system until you reach the outside."

"But, Reno," she protested, her voice as quiet as his own. "The fall from this height... I'd never survive."

"How are you at jumping?" he asked her, turning his head to look her in the eyes. "There's an emergency ladder maybe two feet from the outside grate."

"What if someone sees me?"

"They won't," he assured her. "It's similar to the escape route the president himself would take if there was ever a hijacking of the building. The ladder comes off the back of the building and lowers into an alley behind headquarters."

Cera bit her lip nervously, and Reno reached up with his free hand to smooth her hair back away from her face, almost as if he was comforting a scared child.

"Just trust me, okay?" he requested as she reached up and grasped his arm. "I know what I'm doing."

"Where do I go once I've gotten out of here?" she asked. It was a valid question. He couldn't really expect her to just hang out in an alley behind the very building she had just escaped from. She was sure the first thing they would do would be to scour the nearby streets for signs of her whereabouts.

"Go to my apartment," he replied. "The building is two blocks down the road, a place called The Icarus. It's apartment number 3C. There's a spare key stashed behind the molding on the left side of the door frame. Just wiggle it back and forth a bit and it should come off."

Her grip on his arm tightened and a flicker of uneasiness shone in her eyes. "You're not coming with me?"

"I can't, yo," he told her. "Rufus is going to want to question _everyone_ once he realizes you're gone. If I'm MIA at the same time, it would seem pretty obvious that I helped you, and then we'd _both _be in some serious shit. I'll come home as soon as can, just promise me you won't leave that apartment until I do."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she nodded, and he squeezed her hand reassuringly.

"You ready?"

"Yeah."

Reno checked the hall once more before opening the door and silently ushering her out of the suite and down the hall to the air vent. She continued looking around uneasily as he released her hand and reached up to lift the vent away from the wall, leaving a rectangular hole just big enough for a person to fit through.

"It's two right turns, then a left, then another right to get to the escape vent," he informed her as he placed his hands on her waist, hesitating for a moment before leaning down to kiss her forehead. "Good luck."

Cera blushed when he kissed her, but nodded when he wished her luck and kissed him on the cheek.

"You, too."

Sighing deeply, he lifted her up and helped her into the air duct, waiting around just long enough to help her close the vent and make sure she was able to move about easily. Once he could no longer hear the faint shuffling sound of her crawling through the ducts, he made his way to his office to wait for the inevitable witch-hunt that would come along once Rufus discovered his precious commodity was gone.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: Just a quick note to say hello and thank you to all my lovely reviewers (all three of you!), and to inform everyone that the first nine chapters have all been edited. So, hopefully, everyting should be a bit sleeker than before. Also, if anyone wants to see a picture of what Cera might look like, check my profile for a link to one.

* * *

Chapter Ten

Reno glanced at his watch as he walked briskly down the street to his apartment building. It had only taken Rufus ten minutes after he had helped Cera escape to find her missing, and thirteen hours to personally interview most of the staff at headquarters. He'd started with Reno, of course, knowing the way he felt for her. Reno had remained calm and laid-back, denying any knowledge of what had happened. The video surveillance confirmed he had been in his office during the approximate time of her escape, giving him an alibi and letting him off the hook.

Thinking fast, Reno suggested that maybe the people who had been keeping her at the research facility in Junon had come to claim her back, and wondered if it was an inside job. He asked if there were any new employees on security detail, and Rufus checked to discover that not only was the kid in charge of the surveillance equipment new, he was also from Junon. Reno couldn't believe his luck on that one, and had to bite his tongue to keep from smiling upon hearing the news.

The redhead asked if he could be the one to secure the guard for Rufus' interrogation, and the young president agreed. Reno gladly retrieved the guard, and threatened to kill the kid if he said anything about him being alone in that security room, putting his EMR to the kid's back and powering it up to make sure he knew that he wasn't joking. They spent a few hours alone in an interrogation room, waiting on Rufus, and Reno stared coldly at him the entire time, issuing wordless threats of what would happen to him if he didn't cooperate. When the president arrived, the kid easily admitted to tampering with the surveillance system and begged for his life, saying he had been forced to do it by some crazed lunatic. Rufus, never one to take pity on those who dared to cross him, ordered Reno to "get rid of the traitor."

"Sorry, kid," the Turk drawled without a single shred of remorse as he drew his gun and pointed it at him. "Guess this just ain't your lucky day."

He'd only felt marginally guilty about shooting the young man. In his mind, it was a sacrifice that had to be made so that Cera could be free. He'd killed far too many people for much less to be feeling remorse now. Still, he did feel bad about it. The kid probably had a family, and the stigma of having a family member who had been branded a traitor to ShinRa and executed for their crimes was a hard thing to shake off. He'd let his guilty conscience nag his him later, though. For now, he just needed to get to Cera and make sure she was alright.

The elevator of the apartment building had always been too slow for Reno's liking, so he took the stairs up to the third floor, two steps at a time. He absently wondered if any of the neighbors had seen Cera when she arrived, knowing that her face would be all over the news with a nice, fat reward for any information pertaining to her whereabouts. He trusted her to be careful, though, trusting that she wouldn't want him to get in trouble for what they'd done, and that she likely didn't want to have to go back to headquarters.

Reno fished his keys out of his pocket as he opened the door of the stairwell, stepping out into the tiny, cramped hallway that stretched before him. The small, four-room apartments lined each side of the hallway, their once colorful doors faded and drab-looking under the artificial lighting. He knew it wasn't the nicest place in the world, and that he could afford better on his salary, but living in a dump like this made him more appreciative of everything he had. And in his line of work, he didn't think he _deserved_ to live in a fancy apartment. So this place was just fine with him.

He unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped inside, tossing his keys blindly onto a table just inside the door, and was surprised to actually hear the metal make contact with wood. He turned his head, looking for the pile of mail that always sat there, and was shocked to see it neatly stacked on one side of the table. He moved into the living room and turned on the light to find it in a similar state: The magazines that were usually tossed around the room were neatly piled on the coffee table, while all of the takeout containers and empty beer cans that usually littered the floor had been cleared away. He checked the kitchen to discover the sink full of dishes had been washed and put away, and the trash had actually been taken out. Muttering quietly to himself, he made his way back to the bedroom, swinging by the bathroom along the way and finding it spotless, as well.

Reno's bedroom was immaculate. The clothes that normally scattered the floor had been picked up and either put away or piled into the laundry hamper by the door. He didn't even remember _owning_ a laundry hamper. The bed had been made, the night stand straightened up, and the only thing now out of place was the young woman with raven-colored hair who sat perched at the end of his bed with an accomplished grin on her face.

"What the hell did you do?" he asked her, gesturing about the room.

"I cleaned your apartment," she told him, her smile fading at his lack of appreciation.

"I can _see_ that, yo," Reno continued. "But why?"

"This place was a complete mess, Reno," she said, standing up and placing her hands on her hips. "I was doing you a favor."

"You just fucked us both over, babe," he spat, running his hand back through his hair in frustration. "Shit. If anyone from work comes by, they're gonna _know_ you're here."

"How would they possibly know that just from your apartment being clean?"

"Because I would _never_, in my right mind, actually _clean_ this place up," he almost yelled, causing her to shrink back from him slightly and wrap her arms around herself.

"You could always tell them you got sick of it and hired a maid," she suggested, and he glared at her.

"I'd have to be totally tripping to do _that_, too."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, looking down at the floor between them. "I was just trying to do something nice, you know... To show my appreciation for your help."

Reno sighed deeply, his anger quickly fading at the way she was acting like he'd just slapped her around. He took a step closer and reached out to her, cupping her chin in his hand and tilting her head back up until she looked at him.

"It's okay," he assured her. "I... I _do_ appreciate it, yo. It's just going to make hiding you here a bit harder."

She nodded silently, and he found himself gazing into her soft brown eyes. He hesitated, knowing that getting involved with her now was even riskier than before, then promised himself it would just be one kiss and leaned closer, pressing his lips to hers. Cera sighed softly, her hand coming up to rest against his chest as she returned the kiss, and Reno groaned as he wrapped his arms around her slender waist, kissing her more firmly. He kissed her full bottom lip, sucking on it slightly until she opened her mouth for him and he instantly deepened the kiss, backing her up toward the bed as their tongues mingled together.

Cera felt the backs of her legs hit the end of the bed, and Reno slowly lowered her to the mattress, never breaking the kiss. She moved her hand up into his untamed red hair as he straddled her on the bed, kissing her more fiercely and causing her to whimper. He groaned loudly as he broke the contact and sat up slightly, looking down at her. Her skin was flushed and her eyes had changed color to a darker brown and held the brightness of pure lust within them, yet he found himself hesitating again.

_What the hell is wrong with you? You want this, **she **wants this, why are you stopping?_

She squirmed a bit under his scrutinizing gaze, inadvertently brushing against his rapidly-growing erection, and he had to close his eyes and force himself not to start kissing her again. He _did_ want her, that much was certain from his body's reaction to her, but something just didn't feel right. Opening his eyes once more, he gazed down at her to find her face full of questions.

"I can't do this," he told her quietly. "_We_ can't do this."

"But..." she protested, trying to lean up to kiss him again, but he pulled back from her.

"Cera," he whispered, grasping her wrists and untangling her arms from around him as he sat up. "Don't think I don't want you, babe, 'cause I do. I just don't think we should, yo."

"I understand," she replied, her voice just as quiet, and pulled herself into a sitting position next to him. She refused to meet his eyes, and Reno was surprised to feel a pang of regret for having hurt her.

"It's just not the right time for us," he explained, reaching out to run his fingers through her hair. She looked up at him and he leaned closer, kissing her softly before standing up. "I'm sorry. Really, I am."

"Where are you going?" she asked as he started to make his way to the door. He stopped, smiling slightly at the mildly panicked tone of her voice, and turned back to her.

"It's late, yo," he told her. "We should both get some sleep."

"Your bed is in here, though," she reminded him with a small smile.

"_You_ take the bed," he insisted. "I'm going to sleep on the couch."

"It's big enough for the two of us," she protested as he started toward the bedroom door again, stopping him in his tracks. He turned around and saw her sitting up eagerly on the bed, her eyes pleading him to stay.

For a moment, he considered giving her what she wanted and sleeping in the same bed as her. Then his mind became flooded with images of what would probably happen if they _did_ share the bed. He imagined her naked, lying beneath him and moaning softly, and he had to close his eyes to force back the urge to go to her. She was in a vulnerable state right now, and if they did _that _he would just be taking advantage of her.

"Please, Reno," she begged him. "I don't want to be alone."

"You won't be alone, yo," he told her, opening his eyes and giving her a reassuring smile. "I'm gonna be right out in the next room."

Her shoulders slumped in defeat and she nodded wordlessly, unable to conceal her disappointment. Reno bade her goodnight, then left her alone in his room, closing the door behind him. Once he was in the tiny hallway of the apartment, he banged his head softly back against the door, wondering what the hell had gotten into him. Normally, he would have jumped her in a heartbeat. It wasn't that he didn't want her. A glance down at the bulge in the front of his pants confirmed that he wanted her very much. Something just didn't feel right, and he couldn't put his finger on what it was.

With a tired sigh, he made his way to the living room, wondering if she was suffering a similar predicament. He laughed to himself, doubting she was, and decided that everything would probably just blow over in the morning. Emotions were riding high for both of them, after all, and that sort of mindset can make even the most stable person desperate for sexual attention. He knew that much from first-hand experience.

Cera wondered the same thing as she sat in Reno's bed, staring at the closed bedroom door. Would her feelings for him fade now that he had pushed her away so easily? Of course, she knew it _couldn't_ have been easy for him to do. She had _felt_ his arousal when he was with her. It had sent a delicious pain to certain parts of her body, ignited a need within her that she wasn't sure she'd ever felt before, and it scared her half to death. What was worse, she hadn't _wanted_ him to stop.

She was scared and thrilled by what she was feeling, all at the same time. She wasn't sure if that was what love was supposed to feel like or not, but she knew she didn't want the feeling to end. She only hoped he felt the same way about her.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Reno yawned loudly as he fixed himself a cup of coffee in his tiny kitchen. Nearly three weeks of sleeping on the couch instead of in his nice, comfortable bed were catching up with him. Luckily, things had calmed down considerably at work, so he wasn't too terribly worried about his lack of energy.

The first week after Cera's disappearance had been hectic. Rufus had ordered all four of his Turks to scour the city in search of her. Unfortunately, he had assigned Tseng to the part of town Reno lived in, but Reno had caught a break – no one in his building or any of the shops nearby recalled seeing her on the day of her escape. The following week, the young president of the ShinRa corporation had them all chasing down any and every lead he had that even vaguely suggested who might have been responsible for her capture. He had them running around so much that Reno nearly confessed to taking her himself, just to stop him from running them completely ragged, then he remembered that he had promised himself that he would keep her safe from whatever poking and prodding Rufus had planned for her.

With a weary sigh, the redhead walked back into his makeshift bedroom and flopped down on the couch, grabbing the remote control and turning on the television. He sipped his coffee as he stared at the bright pictures of some sort of children's educational program, too sleep-deprived to even comprehend the lesson being taught by two puppets with misshapen heads and striped shirts. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the tattered old sofa, deciding he would just rest his eyes until it was time to go in to work, and felt two slender hands come to rest against his shoulders. The hands began to gently squeeze and knead his muscles, sending a relaxing wave through his tense body that caused him to instinctively let out a moan.

"Good morning."

It was her soft voice that finally caused him to open his eyes and look up into her gently smiling face. He had been trying to avoid her as much as he could ever since that first night he'd had her in his apartment, leaving for work in the morning without saying goodbye and only speaking to her briefly each night to ask if she needed him to get her any sort of supplies. She always asked him about work, and he refused to tell her much about it, preferring to keep their conversations as brief and non-personal as he could.

"Hi," he replied, frowning slightly when he noticed the lines of worry etched on her face. "What's wrong?"

"You're not sleeping well," she said, running a hand across his forehead, pushing some of the messy red hair out of his eyes.

"I'm sleeping just fine, yo," he insisted, raising his head back up and feigning interest in the program on television in order to avoid looking at her.

"You're lying, Reno," she said as she moved around the side of the couch to stand before him. "You have dark circles under yours eyes, and I could _feel_ how tense you are."

He glanced up at her briefly, considering whether or not he had the energy to actually argue with her about his current state of unrest, then sighed in defeat as he looked away again.

"You know... I really wouldn't mind if you decided to share the bed with me," she offered meekly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "It gets a bit lonely with just me."

"We can't sleep together, Cera," Reno replied without looking at her. "It would just be too... awkward."

"Awkward?" she echoed, laughing quietly.

"Yeah," he said, finally turning to meet her gaze. "I haven't exactly shared a bed with a woman without there being some sort of sex involved."

Cera's cheeks turned a light shade of pink as the meaning of his words came to her, sending an unexpected thrill of excitement through her. She opened her mouth to ask him if that would really be such a bad thing, then thought better of it and closed her lips back up, instead choosing to smile sweetly at him.

"Then _you_ take the bed, and I'll sleep on the couch," she said after a moment, deciding that that seemed to be a suitable compromise. "I'm the guest, after all, and I hate being a burden to you."

Reno snorted in reply. "No way, babe. You don't deserve to sleep on this lumpy piece of shit."

"And _you_ do?" she asked, cocking her head to one side.

"I've slept on a hell of a lot worse, believe me, yo."

They both fell silent after that, and Reno began sipping his coffee just to keep himself from grabbing her and kissing her again. She had obviously just woken up before coming into the living room to confront him. Her hair was slightly mussed from sleeping on it, and she was still wearing the little satin nightgown he'd purchased for her the second day she'd been staying with him. He hadn't been thinking with the right brain at the time he'd made the purchase, or else he would have gotten her something a bit more frumpy and a lot less sexy.

"Reno, about that day..."

Her voice shattered the near-silence that had settled around them, and her words brought back a flood of memories of that night in his bedroom. She had been so warm and inviting, her lips every bit as soft and sweet as he imagined they would be. Reno knew that he could have had her then and there, but for some reason his rational side decided it was going to kick itself into overdrive and prevent him from going that far.

"Yeah?" he prompted her, his voice coming out in a husky whisper.

"I'm sorry," she told him quietly after a moment's hesitation, her eyes downcast as she played with her hands in front of her. Reno's first instinct was to reach for her and comfort her, and he found himself gently grasping one of her hands in his and pulling her toward him before he could even register what he was doing.

Cera looked up at him as he brought her closer, his hands urging her toward him, and saw his own apology mirrored in his eyes. She wondered if he truly was sorry for having pushed her away, and tentatively reached up with her free hand to run her fingers through his hair. His eyes closed at her touch, and his lips parted with a small sigh. Deciding to take a chance, she bent her head down and captured his lips with her own, taking him by surprise. His body tensed for a second, then relaxed as he began kissing her back, his lips moving instinctively against hers. She decided to test the waters further and teased his bottom lip with her tongue, and he moaned somewhere in the back of her throat as he opened his mouth and his tongue met and mingled with hers. She sighed happily as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close and kissing her slowly, her own hands weaving into his hair, but their blissful moment was soon interrupted by a knock at the door.

Reno hastily pulled away from Cera, cursing himself for letting her kiss him, and looked around her at the digital clock sitting on top of the television.

"Fuck," he swore in a loud whisper, quickly standing up and running his hands back through his hair in a nervous fashion. "Okay... _You_ need to hide."

"What's going on?" Cera asked him as the knock sounded once more, this time more insistent.

"Reno?" called a gruff voice from out in the hallway. "Open up! You'd better not be drunk again or Rufus is going to suspend your ass without pay."

"Who is that?" Cera asked as Reno started ushering her back into the bedroom.

"Rude, my partner," he explained. He almost asked her if she didn't recognize the voice, then remembered that Rude had been spared having to try to dig information out of her.

"What should I do?" she asked in a panicked voice as he began retreating back toward the door of the apartment.

"Just... Lay low," he instructed her. "Try not to make any noise, yo. Hide somewhere if you can."

Cera nodded and went to the closet, opening the door and frowning when she found it full of everything she had picked up while cleaning his apartment. She frantically looked around the room for somewhere else to hide, and dove for the bed as she heard Reno open the front door.

"Well, it's about damn time," Rude grumbled as he strode past Reno into the apartment. He took a look around and froze on the spot, arching an eyebrow behind his dark sunglasses as he turned to the younger Turk.

"What?" Reno asked as he closed the door, playing innocent while his heart hammered wildly. If Rude found out Cera was there, he would have no choice but to report it to their boss.

"What happened here?" Rude asked, indicating the tidiness of the apartment with a nod of his head.

"I got sick of not being able to find anything, so I called a maid service and had them clean the place up, yo," Reno lied, using the excuse Cera had provided for him.

Rude chuckled briefly. "I give you less than a week before it's a complete disaster area again."

Reno grinned as relief washed over him, slapping his tall friend on the back.

"Yeah, right," he joked, "more like a day or two."

Rude nodded in agreement and began making his way through the apartment, pretending to casually look about. Reno knew what he was really doing, though – he was staking out the rooms, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

"Why do you have a pillow and a blanket out here?" he asked, pointing to the makeshift bed on the sofa.

"Couldn't sleep last night, so I came out here to watch a movie," Reno told him, wondering when it became so easy for him to lie to his best friend. "I ended up falling asleep."

"Anything good?" Rude asked, and Reno knew it was a trick question. Rude was a movie buff. If he said he was watching something, his partner would ask what he thought of it, and he would be trapped in his own lie.

"Just some porno a kid at the video store recommended," Reno said, knowing that it was the one type of movie Rude _didn't_ enjoy watching. As expected, the darker man's face wrinkled up slightly in disgust and he dropped the subject. He didn't cease his investigation, however, and started making his way toward the bedroom.

Reno stayed a few feet behind his friend, mentally chewing his nails down to the quick as Rude ducked his head into the bathroom to check out the shower before moving into the bedroom. It had suddenly dawned on him that Cera herself wasn't the only piece of evidence that confirmed her presence. She had clothes there, too, and Reno had failed to keep them hidden away in case something like this should happen.

Rude started by simply looking around the room, his eyes scanning for anything that might have been out of place. Of course, with the apartment as clean as it was, _everything_ was out of place. After a moment, he strode purposefully toward the closet and unceremoniously yanked open the doors, peering inside for a while before closing them. Next, he approached the bed and knelt down next to it, checking to see if anyone was hiding underneath and muttering to himself when he found nothing.

Reno's brow furrowed slightly as he watched his partner's search of his bedroom. If Cera wasn't in the closet, and she wasn't under the bed, then were could she be? There was no real ledge outside the window for her to climb up on, so she had to be inside the apartment _somewhere_. Sighing to himself, he looked down and his eyes fell on the laundry hamper next to the door. His eyes went wide for a second as realization dawned on him, but he quickly recomposed himself by the time Rude stood up and turned to him.

Rude, having noticed his partner glancing at the hamper, marched over to stand next to him. He stared the younger man down for several seconds before reaching over and flipping the lid open and peering into the pile of dirty laundry that lie inside. Before Reno could protest, he started pushing around the clothes on top, searching for anything out of the ordinary, but gave up with a sigh when all he found were pieces of the Turk uniform and a couple pairs of Reno's unwashed underwear.

"Are you finished now?" Reno asked as Rude closed the hamper's lid and stood back up to his full height.

"You do know that the president suspects you had a hand in Cera's disappearance, don't you?" he asked his young partner, his voice holding a slightly threatening edge.

"He has no proof of any such thing, yo," Reno replied defiantly without missing a beat. "Now, are we gonna get going or not?"

"No, actually, that's what I came here to tell you."

Reno raised an eyebrow but remained quiet, urging the other man to continue.

"I'm going on the recon mission alone," Rude explained. "Rufus wants you to go to the ruins of the old research facilities in Midgar and see what you can dig up on this Project V that Cera was involved in."

Reno nodded absently. "He mentioned something to me about doing that before, but I guess I just assumed that it wasn't a priority now that she's missing."

"On the contrary, he said it's an even bigger priority now."

"Why would he say that, yo?" Reno asked, but Rude's only response was a shrug of his broad shoulders.

"I'll see you in a few days, partner," he said as he headed for the door of the apartment. Reno held his breath as he watched him go, and didn't let it out until the door had closed behind him.

"Cera?" he called quietly, turning back to the seemingly empty bedroom. "Wherever you are, you can come out now. He's gone."

The lid of the laundry hamper opened and clothes spilled out onto the floor as Cera stood up, sighing heavily and smiling at him.

"Guess it's a good thing I did the laundry yesterday," she said with a small laugh.

"But... How?" Reno asked in shock. "He was digging around all over in there."

"I know," she groaned slightly as she got out of the hamper and picked up the clothes to toss them back inside. "Believe me, if he had gone _any_ farther, we would've been in trouble."

Reno nodded as she finished putting the dirty laundry away, his eyes moving around the room once more.

"What happened to your clothes?"

"I stashed them in the bed," she answered with a grin. "I figured he wouldn't look there. Especially considering it's _your_ bed. Who knows what he might find, right?"

Reno grinned at her. She knew him too well. It probably should have scared the hell out of him that a woman knew him that well, but he was just amused.

"Get dressed," he told her, still smiling. "And wear something other than that dress."

"Why?" she questioned him as he started making his way back out to the living room.

"We're going to Midgar, yo," he called back over his shoulder. "I've been ordered to try to dig into your past, and you're coming with me."

* * *

Author's Note: The next chapter is going to be mostly a flashback, where we'll get to find out what happened to Cera. I'm warning you now, because otherwise you may be totally lost when you start reading it. Just a heads-up! 


	12. Chapter 12

Author's Note: Just a couple of quick things, here. I'm hoping this chapter doesn't confuse too many people, as it's mostly a flashback. Also, no Reno in this one, so don't hurt me. I decided to split up this and the part with him in it that goes along with this into two separate chapters. And, finally, this chapter contains quite a bit of violence. If that's not your thing, you might want to skip it - but you'll probably end up a bit lost later on.

* * *

Chapter Twelve

Six years prior to the Meteor incident, ShinRa had numerous research facilities located in various areas - several in Midgar, alone. One of these facilities was headed by Dr. Ellia Krause, a protege of Dr. Hojo whose specialties lay in the fields of biochemistry and genetic research. Dr. Krause kept modest quarters within the facility she worked at, along with her research assistants, a Turk named Garai who was assigned to protect her, and her subject: a young girl named Cera.

Cera had spent her entire life at the facility, and was raised by Dr. Krause as her own daughter. Her parents had died shortly after her birth, and the good doctor had taken her in so she wouldn't have to grow up in an orphanage or end up living on the streets like so many other abandoned children. Dr. Krause taught the girl about all sort of subjects, while one of the apprentices taught her to fight. She grew up cared-for and loved, with her adoptive mother giving her all the attention a child could ask for. Attention that, she later found out, was not born of love but of scientific inquiry.

Dr. Krause should have known that, sooner or later, the day would come where Cera would find out the truth about who she was and why she was there. She just never counted on it coming so soon. As she strode into her office and began making her way to the plush leather chair behind her desk, she noticed that something was out of place. Her journal, which contained all of her research notes, was not in its customary spot on the corner of her desk. As she rounded the chair, she found the girl sitting there with the brown leather-bound book held open in her hands, a look of pure hatred burning in her brown eyes.

"You lied to me, _mother_," Cera spat bitterly before looking back down at the page she had been reading.

Dr. Krause attempted to laugh off the comment. "I don't know what you're talking about, sweetie. Come on, give me the book."

She held out her hand for the journal, but the girl merely pulled it farther from her grasp as she looked up at her again, her thick black hair falling into her face and obscuring one eye.

"You told me my parents were dead."

"They are."

"Not according to this," Cera pointed out, holding the book up out of her lap. "It says here that my father is being held in the basement of ShinRa manor and that my mother, though her present whereabouts are unknown, is assumed to be alive."

"They didn't want you," Dr. Krause said with a sigh.

"They didn't even _know_ about me," Cera yelled, standing up and throwing the book angrily to the floor. It landed with a loud smack on the cold concrete of the otherwise posh office, and she took a step closer to her guardian, her eyes flashing angrily. "I'm not even a _person_. I'm a fucking _experiment_. You spliced their DNA to create me, then implanted me in the president's pregnant wife!"

Dr. Krause gasped softly as the girl's eyes slowly began to change, the soft brown irises bleeding into a deep red color. She took a step back even as the girl continued to advance on her, glancing toward the door and wondering if she would be able to successfully make an escape.

"Don't even think about it," Cera warned, her voice changing from its usual, soft tone to something deeper and far more menacing. "You, of all people, should know you'd never make it."

"Cera, please, you don't understand--"

"I understand perfectly, you conniving bitch!" Cera shouted, cutting her off. "The past fifteen years have been nothing but lies. All the times I thought you were spending time with me because you _cared_... You were just observing me so you could make notes in your little journal about my _progress_."

"It wasn't my idea, I swear," Dr. Krause said, her voice trembling slightly as she found herself backed up into a wall.

"Don't try to pass this off on Hojo," Cera insisted, closing the distance between them. Though she was only a teenager, she was still taller than the diminutive doctor, and she cast a menacing shadow as she stood over her with the lights to her back. "He may have had the initial idea, but _you_ are the one who came up with the plan and implemented it. I do feel that I must congratulate you, though."

"W-what do you mean?" Dr. Krause asked. Cera took another step closer and leaned down until her face was inches from the older woman's, smiling wickedly.

"You wanted to create the perfect killer," Cera whispered, her tone harsh. "You succeeded."

Dr. Krause opened her mouth and screamed, but the sound was abruptly cut short with a flash of metal as Cera slashed the knife she had been hiding up her sleeve across the woman's throat. Blood spurted from the wound, splattering across the teenage girl's clothes as the body fell limply to the floor. A small, triumphant grin grossed Cera's face as she stood over the doctor's dead body and admired the way her head fell back, the gash across her throat seeming almost like a second mouth that smiled at her as blood seeped out and pooled on the floor at her feet.

Voices sounded from outside the office door, and Cera turned to see two of the doctor's assistants coming in through the doorway, asking if everything was alright. She smiled at the shocked expressions on their faces upon seeing the dead body of their superior, and rushed the shorter of the two, plunging the knife into his stomach and slashing upward. Blood began pouring from his abdomen even before she pulled the blade out, and he fell to his knees before flopping down face-first to the floor. The second assistant had taken the opportunity to run, calling for help as he moved as fast as his legs would carry his overweight frame, and Cera threw the knife toward him, chuckling in amusement when it embedded itself through the back of his head.

A nearby door opened and she turned to find herself facing Garai, the Turk. He was slightly taller than her, and sported well-developed muscles on nearly every part of his body. She grinned at him, eager for a challenge, and raised one hand to beckon him to her with a wave of her finger. He lunged at her and she quickly dodged out of the way, swinging her arm to backhand him. He managed to catch her hand in his own before it made contact with the back of his head, and they erupted into a furious, hand-to-hand battle. Cera managed to dodge most of his blows, but then she misstepped and he got off a kick to the back of one of her legs, causing her knee to buckle. Growling furiously, she stood up and unleashed a series of punches and kicks meant to wear him out rather than do any damage. After he blocked a low kick with both of his hands, she seized the opportunity and reached out, grabbing his head and giving it a swift turn that caused his neck to snap with a sickening crack.

She dropped his body to the ground and searched him for any sort of weapon, not wanting to take the time to wrench her knife out of the skull of the dead assistant. The only thing she could find on his body was a gun, which she was not nearly as skilled with as other weapons. Deciding it would be better than nothing, she turned off the safety and began making her way down the corridor toward the main lab. Her fury grew with each step she took until, finally, she reached the last room that lay between her and her freedom. Without hesitating, she kicked the door down and began firing the gun at anyone she saw.

Several of her shots missed, but for each one that went wide, another found its mark – wounding or killing another of the people responsible for her imprisonment. The gunshots echoed in the large room, mingling with the shouts of the researchers to one another. She heard a few asking what was going on, and someone yelling to get her under control. The bullets soon ran out, and Cera began making her way toward the exit, tossing the empty gun amongst the bodies of the dead, the wounded, and the cowering.

"Now!" someone shouted, and she spun around to fight whoever was bold enough to dare to take her on. At least a dozen researchers surged toward her at once, yelling at the top of their lungs. She managed to fight off several of them, but then she felt a sharp stabbing in her shoulder and cried out in agony.

The researchers let her go and took a step back, some of them gingerly nursing their nose or an arm which she had broken in the struggle. Cera looked around at them, her eyes returning to their normal shade of brown as everything around her began to look fuzzy and her legs started to give out under her. The last thing she remembered seeing was Hojo, smiling proudly at her.

Then everything went black.

**

* * *

**

Cera gasped, then sank to the floor with the blood-splattered journal in her hands as it all suddenly came flooding back to her. She had killed at least four people that day. And then... the next thing she knew, she was waking up in that bed at ShinRa headquarters. She had only been fifteen then. Nine years... They had kept her under for nine years.

She closed her eyes as a wave of nausea flooded over her. The memory had been so vivid. She swore she could feel the dead weight of each body as it fell at her feet, taste the coppery-sweet scent of the blood she had spilled from them on her tongue. And she remembered the thrill of it – the excitement she had felt as she ripped each of their lives away from them. She felt bile starting to rise at the back of her throat, revulsion for what she truly was: A monster, a killer with no remorse.

Reno had brought her to this old research facility in hopes that they might find a clue about her past, and they had succeeded. She knew what she was, now, and she hated herself for it.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Reno shuffled through the contents of the folder in his hands, searching for any mention of Cera or Project V that he could find. When the search proved futile, he tossed the lone folder back into the drawer of the filing cabinet he'd found it in and shoved the drawer closed with enough force to cause it to bounce back out several inches.

He knew he really shouldn't be surprised that the place had been cleaned out so thoroughly. ShinRa's research was top-secret, after all, and President Shinra hadn't been _that_ stupid. He knew to make sure he kept things under wraps so that information wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. And when it _did_ happen to get leaked somehow, he'd always sent the Turks out to take care of the source before things had a chance to get out of hand.

Running a hand back through his hair with a sigh, he turned around to find Cera missing. She had just been behind him a minute ago, when he'd finally broken the locked filing cabinet open, but she had somehow managed to vanish while he wasn't looking. Calling her name, he retraced their steps back the way they had come, knowing she couldn't have gotten very far through the shambles of the facility they were in. The place had been practically destroyed, just like the rest of Midgar, and Reno found it amazing the building was still standing.

Once he reached the entrance of the facility without finding any sign of her, he began to worry. Swearing under his breath, he turned around and began making his way back to the office he had just been in when something caught his eye: A door along the far wall that he hadn't noticed when they first came in. He wondered how he could have missed something like that, but quickly shrugged it off when he noticed that it was only open just far enough for someone to slide through the gap between the door and its frame.

He crossed the room and examined the door, letting out a low whistle when he found it was made of reinforced steel and had a security lock on it. Apparently, there was once something behind this door that ShinRa wanted to keep a _very_ tight lid on. Sucking in his stomach and pulling himself to his full height, he carefully slid through the gap between the door and its frame. It was a narrow fit, but he managed to squeeze himself through.

Once on the other side of the door, he turned around and found himself standing in an empty corridor with three doors on either side and one door placed at the opposite end. Glancing down at the floor, he found a couple of large, discolored marks in the concrete – telltale signs that there had been a clean-up crew set to the location to scour blood off the floor. He shook his head, marveling at how a place with so much security could let something dangerous enough to cause that much bloodshed to be let loose in the facility, and continued toward the other end of the hallway.

The door at the opposite end was ajar, and as Reno stepped through he let out a relieved sigh upon spotting Cera. She was seated in the middle of the floor, and as he drew closer he realized that she was shaking. Calling her name, he rushed to her and knelt at her side, pushing her hair back from her face. Her expression was blank, and tears streaked her cheeks as her bottom lip quivered with her silent sobbing. He reached out to put an arm around her, and she didn't even acknowledge his presence.

"Cera?" he whispered, gently wiping the tears from one of her cheeks with his fingers. "What happened, babe?"

"I killed them," she replied, her voice hollow and emotionless.

"Killed who?" he asked, furrowing his brow in confusion.

"Doctor Krause, Garai, Murphy, Lux... I killed them all. Probably more, too."

Reno's eyes widened briefly at the mention of Garai's name. He had been a Turk when Reno was brought in as a trainee, and was sent to provide security for a group of scientists in Midgar two months after he'd first been brought in. Reno had liked the guy – he was laid-back, but always followed orders to the letter, and he'd even given Reno a few tips on how to polish his fighting technique. Then he'd been killed unexpectedly when an experiment had backfired at the facility he was stationed at. The Turks were left with a vacant spot, and Reno was promoted to official status.

"You must be mistaken," he corrected her. "I knew Garai. He was killed in some sort of explosion. Some experiment that went wrong while he was stationed at some lab in Midgar."

"He was stationed _here_ Reno," she told him, her voice still empty. "And I was the experiment that killed him."

"What are you talking about?" he asked her, wondering if she remembered something about her past now. She simply pointed to a leather-bound book sitting near her on the ground. Reno stroked her dark hair one last time before moving away from her and picking the book up. A piece of paper slid out from within its pages and he sighed, reaching for it and grabbing it up to place it back in its proper place when something caught his eye.

_Certificate of Birth_

Reno glanced at Cera, then proceeded to read the rest of the document in his hand. The date and time of birth were identical to the one Rufus had shown him in his office that was supposedly the record of his dead sister's birth. There were a few slight differences, however, such as names. He blinked as he read the names of her parents and re-read them, wondering if he'd misread part of it. According to the document, her father was Vincent Valentine and her mother was Lucrecia Crescent. It wasn't possible, though. It was company record that Doctor Crescent had disappeared shortly after the birth of Sephiroth, and he had learned from his dealings with AVALANCHE that Vincent had been locked up in the basement of ShinRa manor for almost thirty years prior to the whole Meteor incident. His eyes traveled up to where her name was printed and everything hit him out of the blue.

_Ceraluci Valentine_...

"Project V," Cera whispered, drawing him back from his thoughts. "I wasn't involved in it... I _was_ it."

Reno nodded silently. That answered one of the biggest questions he'd had on his mind, lately, but it left so many more unanswered. He began flipping through the bound journal he'd picked up off the floor, recognizing the nearly-illegible handwriting as the same script from the notes he'd seen in Rufus' office. Starting somewhere in the middle of the book, he flipped back through the pages, searching for an explanation but not understanding a word of the technical gibberish.

"You want to know how I came into being," Cera addressed him, turning her head slightly to look in his direction without lifting her eyes to his face. Reno merely stood there, watching her. If she wanted to offer up the information, he wasn't going to stop her, but he refused to make her feel pressured into telling him anything.

"Doctor Krause was quite gifted in the art of genetic engineering," she began, turning to stare at the floor in front of her once more, where another discolored area showed on the concrete. "She took blood samples that Hojo had acquired from some of his subjects and isolated the DNA within them, combining them in an attempt to create a new being, on a genetic level. But she wasn't satisfied with using just normal, regular strands of DNA. No... She only used mutated ones."

"The Jenova mutation in your blood... It's from your mother," Reno observed quietly. "But if Vincent is your father, then what did she use from him?"

"Chaos," Cera replied. "She chose the strongest of the demons inside him to help ensure the best results possible."

"Exactly what results was she looking for?"

Cera hesitated a moment, and Reno wondered if maybe he'd pushed her too far with his questions. He was about to apologize for asking too much when she began speaking again.

"The goal was to create the perfect killer, much like what Hojo was doing with Sephiroth. Except, with me, that was to be my only goal in life." She let out a short, humorless laugh and looked up at him with a rueful smile. "I was supposed to eventually replace the Turks as ShinRa's lapdog for doing their dirty work."

"Then I guess I'm glad they failed, yo," he said, trying to make a joke to help lighten the mood, but Cera simply turned away from him again.

"They succeeded, though, Reno," she said, her voice wavering slightly. "That day... I don't know how many people died, but it was more than just the four. And with each of them... I felt... There was no remorse, no pity for them, but I remember feeling... Accomplished. Proud. I killed them, and I enjoyed it."

"Maybe because they deserved it," he suggested, wishing he knew what to say to make her feel better.

"Doctor Krause, possibly, but the others... They were just following her lead, taking her orders."

"Which makes them just as guilty as her for what was done to you."

She looked at him again, and Reno could see the self-loathing in her eyes. He remembered seeing a similar look in his own eyes after his first kill as a Turk. Sometimes he still saw it in himself, but not as frequently as he once did. He reached out and tried to run his fingers through her hair, but she stiffened at his touch and he pulled his hand away.

"You knew Garai," she said, breaking their eye-contact and instead staring blankly at his chest. "He was your friend, correct?"

"Not exactly," Reno corrected her. "He helped with my training. I liked him, but we weren't close or anything."

"I killed him with my bare hands," she informed him. "Snapped his neck like it was a twig. I think about it now and I can hear the bones breaking, feel the dead weight of his body dropping limply at my feet, and... And the memory excites me."

"Cera," he said her name, waiting until she finally looked up at him again before continuing. "I don't understand one thing: How were you even born?"

"President Shinra's wife was already pregnant with Rufus by the time Doctor Krause perfected her prototype. She infused the engineered DNA into an artificial embryo she had designed, and had it implanted into the woman during one of her visits to the hospital during her pregnancy. After that, it was just a matter of waiting to see if things worked out. Either they would, and she would have her precious experiment to play with, or they wouldn't, and no would would be the wiser."

"And President Shinra knew about this?" he wondered aloud.

"No," Cera replied with a shake of her head. "He was lied to as much as I was, at least in the beginning. He and his wife were told one of their children was born too weak to survive and that she died shortly after birth. Of course, when Doctor Krause discovered she required further financial backing for her experiments, she came clean with him about what she had done. And wouldn't you know it, the bastard actually complimented her work and gave her what she wanted."

Reno's anger continued to grow with each word of the story she told, and by the time she had finished he couldn't really blame her for what she had done to Doctor Krause and her assistants. He stood with a heavy sigh, the journal still clutched in one hand, and held his other hand out to her.

"Come on," he said softly, hiding his rage from her. "Let's go home. You've been through enough today."

Cera looked at his hand, then her gaze traveled up the length of his arm until her eyes fell upon his face. A part of her wondered if he had even been paying attention to everything she had said about the people she had killed, then she reminded herself that he was a Turk. Killing people was a part of his job description, and if he judged her for what she had done he might as well have been judging himself, too.

With a faint smile, she hesitantly took his offered hand and nodded in agreement. Reno let out a small sigh and kissed her forehead reassuringly, then gently pulled her along with him as they left the remains of the research facility and returned to his apartment.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Reno stared at the half-empty beer in front of him, blocking out the noise of the other barflies and the loud music coming from a nearby jukebox as he silently contemplated the recent events in his life.

Cera had locked herself in his bedroom as soon as they got back to the apartment from the Midgar ruins. He tried to talk her into letting him in, speaking to her through the solid wood barrier in a calm voice meant to help soothe her, but she refused to see him or even speak to him. When she finally re-emerged two days later, she wasn't quite the same. The sparkle of life that had been in her eyes had faded considerably, and Reno was surprised to find that this detail bothered him a great deal.

His initial instinct was to go straight to Rufus Shinra's office and pound his face in, but the rational part of his brain reminded him that the young president likely had no idea what Cera had been through. Not only that, but confronting Rufus over what had happened would mean admitting he had helped Cera escape in the first place. So he'd done the next best thing: He fell back into a pattern of going out after work and getting himself so drunk he didn't care.

Cera had been concerned for him when he stumbled in after one of his little binges, and it made him hurt even more to see her showing so much compassion for him when she was so obviously suffering from a strong sense of self-loathing. He'd stared into her eyes, willing them to smile for him again the way they did before she'd remembered the truth about her past, and wondered if he could find a way to bring back all the people she'd killed so that he could take them out himself and save her the misery.

She asked him that night if he thought any less of her, knowing what she'd done. He gave it a bit of thought, not wanting to answer her too quickly so she could try to say he hadn't given it enough thought. He told her he felt no different, but it was partly a lie. As he looked at her, he realized that nothing she had ever done in the past could make him change his feelings about her – not for the worse, at any rate. Hell, if he was honest with himself he could say that learning about what she had been through – the horrible ordeal she had endured – and having to watch her make herself suffer for it had made him realize something about his own feelings for her.

No... He wouldn't admit that. That was the one thing he could never do.

"Everything okay, partner?"

Reno turned his head to look at Rude, who had decided to accompany him to the bar after work. He put on a smile, but knew it was only half-hearted and hoped the shades-wearing Turk would attribute it to a lack of sleep combined with the drinking.

"I'm fine, yo," the redhead drawled, nodding at the bartender who had stopped in front of them to order himself another round.

"It's your birthday, Reno," Rude pointed out. "You should be celebrating. You haven't even hit on a single girl tonight."

Reno shrugged. "Maybe I just feel too old to be skirt-chasing."

"You're only twenty-seven," Rude replied before taking a sip of his beer. His partner shrugged again and finished his own drink in several long gulps before slamming the empty bottle down on the counter as the bartender placed a fresh one in front of him.

"This wouldn't have something to do with Cera, would it?" Rude asked, keeping his voice low so no one would overhear them.

Reno's head snapped to the side, his blue eyes widening as he looked at his companion and wondered if he'd heard correctly, or if the words had been garbled in the din and he'd just replaced them with the thoughts in his head.

"I know you're the one who helped her escape, you know."

"You do?" the younger Turk asked, suddenly feeling tense around his most trusted friend.

Rude nodded, calmly sipping his beer again. "I had a hunch you were involved. That's why I volunteered to be the one to check your place out. I knew if Tseng or Elena had found evidence of her being there, they would have ratted you out in a heartbeat."

"I have no idea what the hell you're talking about," Reno muttered, turning around to face forward again.

"She was hiding in the laundry hamper by your bedroom door," Rude said, dispelling any doubts Reno had about the validity of his partner's claims.

"Whatever, man," the younger Turk replied, hoping that maybe Rude would get the hint and just drop the subject.

"There was a lock of black hair lying amongst your dirty clothes. I don't think it climbed in there on its own. Plus, I could smell lilies and roses. So unless you have a... softer side that I've never seen, I think it's a safe bet to say that you've been keeping her at your place this entire time. Plus, your apartment was _spotless_, and I know you well enough to not buy that crap line you gave me about hiring a maid."

Reno refused to acknowledge the accusation with a verbal reply. He hadn't even thought of the scent of her shampoo being a dead giveaway. He'd gotten used to it from his daily visits with her, so it never seemed out of place in his apartment.

"The point is," Rude continued when it became apparent that Reno was not going to confirm or deny what he was saying was true, "I covered for your ass that day. Rufus asked me if there was any evidence of her at your place, and I said there wasn't anything suspicious at all."

"So what, I owe you now?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes," Rude said with a nod as he finished his beer. The bartender stopped by them and asked if he wanted another one, but the dark man shook his head. He wanted to remain sober enough to drag Reno home once he was finished getting lathered up for the night.

"And I suppose you're telling me this now because you want to collect on that debt," Reno guessed.

"Don't be so over-dramatic, Reno. I just want you to answer a few questions for me."

Reno nodded and lifted the cold beer to his lips, taking several large swallows before placing the bottle back on the counter and turning on his stool to look at his best friend.

"What do you want to know?"

"Has she remembered anything yet?" Rude asked, turning slightly on his own stool so they could speak more easily.

Reno debated if he should tell Rude about what had happened when he took Cera to that old research lab in Midgar. It had been almost two weeks since the incident, but the memory was still freshly burned in his mind. The anger he felt toward the company he worked for for allowing such an experiment to take place, the sympathy he felt for Cera at having to carry the burden of so much blood on her hands, the intense desire he had to make the past go away so that she could just live a normal life... all of it was just as raw to him as it had been that day.

"She remembered," he said simply.

"Remembered what?" Rude prompted, leaving Reno with the decision of exactly _how much_ he should tell his partner.

"Y'know how Garai was working at that lab in Midgar right after I first started my training?"

"Yes."

"When he was killed... How many people died in that incident?" Reno asked, hoping to steer the conversation in a different direction, if only for a short while as he debated how to tell Rude that the man he had trained with had been murdered by the woman Reno was now harboring in his apartment.

"Seven," Rude answered without question. "Garai and six scientists, including the lead researcher of that facility."

Reno nodded. "Cera was there when it happened, yo. The lead researcher pretty much raised her."

He had decided that Rude didn't need the details, and he wasn't going to offer them unless they were asked for specifically. The less Rude knew about it, he reasoned, the safer Cera would be. After all, if Rude knew she was potentially dangerous, he might turn her and Reno in to Rufus – and that, in itself, was an unpleasant prospect.

"Why did you help her escape?" Rude asked, catching Reno off guard. He hadn't been expecting _that_ question, although he knew he probably should have. Rude was always interested in the why of things, which was the reason he was often called upon to interrogate prisoners.

"It just didn't seem fair, yo," he replied, shrugging slightly. "Rufus was flat-out lying to her, more or less keeping her prisoner. Plus, he lied to _me_ and it just pissed me off."

"Since when are _you_ concerned about things being morally right?"

Reno sighed and started drinking again. He knew Rude had a point. Their job wasn't the most morally upstanding one in the world. The fact that Rufus lied shouldn't have even phased him. But it had.

"Have you slept with her yet?"

"Excuse me?" Reno asked, his voice slightly high-pitched as his head snapped around to look at the man seated next to him.

Rude shrugged in reply. "She's staying in your apartment, so I just assumed..."

"No," the redhead replied firmly. "I have _not_ had sex with her."

"But you want to."

It wasn't a question, but a statement, almost like he knew it for a fact that Reno was sexually attracted to the girl. Of course, he supposed he should have known Rude would make that assumption. Reno was generally sexually attracted to _anything_ female, after all.

"I have no plans to have sex with her, Rude," he insisted as he turned away from his partner again.

"Have you come close?"

Reno slammed his drink down on the counter. He didn't know why Rude's questions were getting to him so badly, but they were. Normally, he would be bragging about how close he'd come to screwing her, but a part of him wanted to keep that under wraps.

"We kissed," he told his friend.

"And?"

"Things got a little hot and heavy, but I stopped before they got too out of control."

"That's not like you at all," Rude pointed out, then chuckled a bit.

"What's so funny?" Reno asked, his mouth set in a firm line.

"You're in love."

"What the hell are you smoking, yo?" the redhead asked, flagging down the bartender for yet another beer.

"You have _never_ stopped when you knew you were going to get some, Reno," Rude pointed out to him. "The fact that you _did_ stop shows that you genuinely care about her."

"Yeah, right," Reno scoffed, downing the last of his beer, then starting in immediately on the next one.

"Reno," the other man addressed him, laying a hand on his shoulder. "In all the years we've been together, I thought I would never see the day you actually fell in love."

"I am _not_ in love, yo," he insisted.

"Then why did you stop?" Rude asked, then continued to answer his own question. "You didn't want it to be just another meaningless fuck with her. You wanted it to be special, to actually _mean something_ for once."

Reno ignored his partner's comment and kept drinking his beer. What bothered him so much wasn't that Rude was insisting he _had_ feelings for Cera, but the fact that he thought his partner might actually be right.

"Can we just not talk about her for the rest of the night? Please?" he asked, his voice unusually quiet. Rude nodded and apologized, then began sipping his own beer again, watching Reno for the rest of the night as he steadily grew drunker.

By the time last call came around, Reno had managed to drink enough to block out his entire conversation with Rude. His partner tried to walk him home, but he insisted on going by himself and refused to leave his barstool until Rude went home. Rude paid for their drinks – his birthday gift to Reno – then went home, insisting that the redhead call him to let him know he arrived safely at his own apartment. Reno nodded in agreement, but Rude knew he wouldn't call. He never did. All Rude could do was hope the younger man didn't end up dead in a ditch somewhere.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Reno groaned loudly, bringing a hand up to his throbbing head as he blinked in the harsh morning light that was shining right across his eyes. He felt like an entire herd of chocobos were rampaging through his brain and pecking out the backs of his eyeballs. Swearing under his breath, he slowly sat up in bed and winced as he opened his eyes.

The room gradually came into focus around him, and he suddenly found himself wide awake. He wasn't in the living room, where he'd been sleeping every night since Cera started staying with him. Instead, he was in his own room, in his own bed. He turned his head slightly – moving slowly so the room wouldn't start spinning around him – and found her lying next to him, still asleep.

A smile started to creep across his lips as he watched her sleeping, her dark hair fanned out across the pillow. The sheet wrapped tightly around her body showed off the feminine curves of her waist and hips, and the tops of her breasts just barely peeked out from under the thin cotton fabric. He blinked several times as he stared at her chest rising and falling steadily with each breath she took. She was showing entirely too much skin to be wearing anything under the covers. Holding his breath, he lifted up the covers just enough to take a peek at himself, and swore again when he found that _he_ was naked, as well.

Running a hand back through his hair, he desperately hoped that they hadn't done what he _thought_ they'd done. He searched his memory of the night before, attempting to recall even the smallest detail of what had happened. He remembered going out with Rude after work, and he remembered them having a conversation – though he couldn't remember exactly what was said, for the life of him – and then... he really didn't remember. He knew he must have come home at some point, but it was all just a blank haze. As for how they ended up in bed together...

He pushed aside the idea that they had sex, knowing he had a habit of sleeping in the nude after a long night of drinking, thanks to the alcohol in his system making him feel like he was burning from the inside out. Plus, he really didn't know what she usually wore to bed. For all he knew she _always_ slept naked.

The thought of her naked started to arouse him, and he quickly got up, grabbing the top cover off the bed to wrap around himself in case she woke up. Shaking his head, he began making his way to the bathroom to take a shower when he saw his boxers tossed haphazardly on the floor at the foot of the bed. Holding his breath, he slowly made is way around to the side of the bed she was sleeping on and looked down. There, on the floor, was what appeared to be a satin nightgown and a pair of lace panties.

Swallowing nervously, he backed up out of them room and went straight to the bathroom, locking the door behind him before starting the shower. He dropped the cover he had been keeping around himself and stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. If he wanted to go by the evidence, all signs were pointing to them having had sex the night before. No matter how hard he tried, though, he couldn't remember anything.

He ran a hand back through his messy red hair and turned away from the mirror to step into the shower. Reno liked his showers he liked his sex: Hot and long-lasting. The obscenely hot water splattered his hair to the top of his head, turning it a darker shade in the process, and ran down his back in near-scalding rivulets. He sighed deeply as he leaned forward and allowed the spray to beat down on his back, the force of the water soothing the tension in the muscles of his neck and shoulders, then closed his eyes and just enjoyed the sensation, blocking out the fear he had of facing Cera knowing that there was a _very_ good chance he'd had sex with her. Swearing under his breath, he punched his fist into the back wall of the shower and quickly bathed, deciding that lingering under the hot water wasn't worth the threat of having to face her.

As he washed, he came up with a plan. He would get out of the shower as fast as he could, dress, leave her a note saying he'd been called off on a mission, and go in to work early. Of course, doing that had the disadvantage of sending off red flags. Reno was _never_ early for work. In fact, he was almost always at least five minutes late on the days when he didn't go in with Rude. He supposed he could just lie and tell them he'd woken up with a complete stranger in his bed and didn't want to have to face her when she got up, and they would likely believe it. All except for Rude. Somehow, of all the things he _could_ remember, he recalled telling Rude that Cera was hiding out at his place.

After turning off the water and stepping out of the shower, he grabbed a towel and dried himself off hastily before wrapping it around his waist and making his way back into his bedroom, his wet hair leaving a trail of water droplets behind him on the floor. He immediately went to his closet and began pulling out the pieces of his Turk uniform, tossing them onto a nearby chair. He didn't notice that Cera was already sitting up in bed, watching his every move, until he went to pick up the pile of clothes off the chair and glanced in her direction.

Reno froze at the sight of her. She still had the sheet wrapped around her, and her dark hair was falling around her shoulders in a wavy mass. Her hair was an absolute mess and her eyes sparkled as a smile slowly spread across her lips. He felt like an ass as he looked at her. She was beautiful and innocent and he'd selfishly used her for his own pleasure.

"Good morning," she whispered, stretching her legs out in front of her and leaning forward to stretch the muscles in her back and arms. She reminded Reno of a cat when she did that, and he caught himself smiling before he could stop himself.

"Good morning," he replied automatically. His eyes fell from her face to to tops of her breasts, which were extremely prominent in that position. Feeling an erection starting to come on, he quickly averted his gaze and cleared his throat, struggling for the right words to say to her.

"Look... About last night..."

"You don't have to apologize, Reno," she told him, her voice soft and soothing.

"I don't?" he asked. Part of him wanted to ask her _Apologize for what?_ But he knew better.

Cera nodded her head, her tousled hair falling over one of her brown eyes as her smile turned a bit shy.

"I enjoyed it," she said in a quiet tone that was just above a whisper. "Very much. My only regret is that we waited so long."

Reno was cursing up a storm in the back of his mind. They really _did_ have sex, and now that she had confirmed his fears he felt even more like an ass.

"There's just one thing I need to know," she added, and Reno turned his gaze back to her again. She sat up straight, licking her lips nervously, a hesitant look on her face. He instantly wanted to go to her and brush her hair back from her eyes and kiss whatever doubts she was feeling away.

"What's that?" he asked her, moving closer to the bed. He sat down near her and watcher her as she struggled with herself over what to say, curling his hands into fists to keep himself from pulling her into his arms.

"Did you really mean it?" she whispered uncertainly.

"Mean what?" Reno cautiously asked her in return.

"What you said to me last night, after we..." She hesitated and he watched her cheeks turn a pretty, pale pink before she averted her eyes from his and continued. "After we made love."

_After we made love_.

Her words echoed in his mind and he closed his eyes, turning away from her. He wasn't stupid enough to ask her what he'd said, but her choice of wording for describing what had happened between them was enough to tell him what words had stupidly come out of his mouth in the heat of the moment.

"You were a virgin, weren't you?" he asked in return as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, partly in an attempt to change the topic of their conversation, and partly because of his own curiosity. She was certainly acting like someone who had never had sex before their encounter.

Cera simply nodded in reply, and instead of the relief he thought he would feel from knowing why she was acting like she was, he felt even more guilty: Guilty for being her first, guilty for not remembering anything about it, guilty for having told her he loved her when he wasn't even sure himself how he really felt.

"I gotta get ready for work, yo," he told her quietly as he stood up and went to hastily gather his clothes off the chair by the closet.

Cera watched him as he rushed to get out of the room and away from her, her heart breaking in her chest. He could barely even look at her now that she had brought up what he had said. She had needed to know, though, if it was a sincere admission or just a slip of the tongue in the bliss of the afterglow. What hurt her the most, however, wasn't that he was silently telling her it wasn't true. What hurt more than anything was that she had already fallen in love with him before they spent the night in each other's arms, and now she knew he would never return those feelings.

She held back a sob as he made his way out of the bedroom, and he turned to her. Their eyes met, and she could see regret in those perfect blue eyes as he looked at her. A part of her wished she would have pushed him away when he had come to her the night before, but she knew that her heart never would have allowed that to happen.

"Don't take it personal, babe."

She blinked once before refocusing her gaze on his face, and found a small smile pulling at his lips. It was a forced gesture, however, and she could see right through it. She averted her eyes from him, focusing instead on the bed, and pulled the covers higher up against her chest. She felt more naked and vulnerable than ever in front of him now, and wasn't sure how she was going to be able to stand staying with him any longer.

Reno sighed quietly to himself as he watched her close herself off from him. A long silence filled the room, and his own eyes closed and he bit back his pride before finally speaking again.

"I wish I could say that I did mean it, Cera," he said quietly. "But the truth is, I don't know."

He dared to look at her and found that she was still staring at the bed rather than meeting his gaze, her hair falling in dark waves across her face as she nodded slowly. He cautiously approached the bed and sat down next to her, leaning over and placing a hand under her chin to tip her head up so she would look at him again.

"I'm sorry, but last night..." the words died on his lips when he realized he wasn't exactly sure what he wanted to say.

"Last night was a mistake," she said, filling in the blank for him, her voice thick with unshed tears.

"No," he corrected instantly, then ran a hand back through his hair as he turned away from her, shaking his head. "I don't know. Maybe. But it happened, so I guess we can't just ignore it."

"You should go," Cera told him as she pulled away from him, sliding toward the other end of the bed until her back was flush against the headboard.

Reno sat there and watched her for a long while, considering his options. He could simply leave, as she asked, or maybe he could try making love to her again and see if it triggered any memory of the night before. The more he thought about it, though, the more his conscience nagged at him to just tell her the truth.

"I was drunk last night, Cera," he heard himself telling her. "I don't remember anything that happened."

Her expression changed slightly, and she looked relieved and more hurt at the same time. He moved closer to her, not stopping until he was near enough that he could almost kiss her.

"Stop, Reno," she ordered, bringing her hands up and placing them on his chest. "We can't. We shouldn't have in the first place."

She looked at him briefly and saw a flicker of disappointment in his eyes. But he nodded slightly and backed away, climbing off the bed once more. They continued to stare at each other in silence for a minute or two, then he finally grabbed his clothes and retreated to the bathroom to dress.

* * *

Author's Note: I did actually write a chapter about the encounter between Reno and Cera, but I'm not about to go posting it here. Those who are interested in reading it can find it on my LiveJournal, which is linked in my profile. You'll also find other Reno/Cera goodies there (mostly those of the more naughty nature) as well as some stories about the "next generation" that a friend and I came up with (because we're weird like that). 

Also, I just wanted to note that Lady Karai is including Reno and Cera in an upcoming chapter of her Kingdom Hearts fic, The Night Within My Eyes. I recommend that everyone reading this go check it out immediately (if you haven't already) because it's a great fic! Also be sure to check out her story Between the Lines, which is about the off-camera scenes of Reno and Rude in Advent Children. Good stuff!


	16. Chapter 16

Author's Note: Half of this chapter was written while on a combination of Morphine and Vicodin after I returned home from the hospital yesterday. Don't worry, though... Nothing serious this time, just a REALLY bad migraine. But I just wanted to apologize if some of the early part of this chapter seems a bit... disjointed.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

Reno let out a heavy sigh as he stood in the office he shared with Rude, stirring a cup of coffee. He stared into the dark liquid swirling around in the ceramic mug as he moved the spoon back and forth, his mind wandering to the disaster his morning had been thus far.

It had been bad enough he didn't remember sleeping with Cera, but he had also apparently told her he loved her – or said some other deep, emotionally sentimental words to her. He had retreated to the bathroom to dress after their conversation, leaving her alone, and then emerged several minutes later to find his bedroom door closed and locked. He figured she just wanted to be alone after the awkward moment that had passed between them, but as he stood there quietly staring at the closed door he could hear the distinct sound of crying on the other side.

Knowing she was in that much pain over his own idiocy made him feel like a complete jerk. He had vowed, then and there, that he would think of a way to make it up to her. He left for work without saying goodbye, thinking it was best to just leave her alone so he didn't say anything _more_ stupid than what he already had, but made sure to jot down a quick note for her so she knew where he would be.

He decided to walk to work rather than drive. It really wasn't that far, and he had no real need to have his car there. Walking also helped him to think. Unfortunately, as he was thinking, he started to remember bits and pieces of the conversation he had had with Rude at the bar the previous night. What stood out most in his mind was the fact that Rude _knew_ Cera was hiding at his place. Of course, he'd promised that his partner's secret would be safe with him... But they were Turks, and for as loyal as they were to each other, people said they couldn't be trusted for a reason.

Rude entered the office almost six minutes late, causing Reno to raise a suspicious eyebrow as he fixed his eyes on the older man's appearance: he seemed a bit flustered, and his clothes were slightly rumpled – hardly the prim and punctual Turk he was used to seeing on a daily basis.

"Have fun last night after you left?" the redhead asked, forgetting his own dilemma for a moment. Just because he was having a personal crisis, it didn't mean he was about to give up a perfect opportunity to bust his partner's chops.

"What are you talking about?" Rude asked, avoiding looking at his partner as he poured his own cup of black coffee. Reno watched the bald man make his way to his desk, calmly drinking his coffee as he picked up a report and looked it over briefly before sitting down.

"You went over to Tifa's after you left, didn't you?" Reno asked in a teasing voice. "You went over there and fucked her brains out, yo. Not that I can say I blame you. She _is_ hot."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Reno," Rude insisted, shifting a bit uneasily in his chair as he kept his eyes glued to the papers in his hand. Reno grinned broadly at his friend's denial.

"I'll take that as a yes, then."

"What about you?" Rude asked, eager to change the subject. His relationship with Tifa was still fairly new, and aside from Reno no one even knew that the two of them were romantically involved. Talking about it while they were in the office made him extremely uncomfortable, knowing that any of their colleagues could walk in at any moment and overhear what they had been discussing.

"What about me?" Reno asked, turning away from his partner's desk and heading to his own.

"What happened after you left the bar?" Rude questioned him as he looked at him over the top of his dark sunglasses.

"I went home," the redhead answered, sitting his coffee cup down and bending his arms behind his head as he leaned back in is chair and propped his feet up on his desk.

"And?" Rude prompted. "Did you discuss what we talked about with Cera at all?"

"Not... _exactly_," Reno stated reluctantly.

"Not exactly?" Rude echoed, sitting the paperwork down and leaning over his desk, his interest piqued. "What happened, Reno?"

Reno shifted in his chair more uncomfortably than his partner had only a minute before, grimacing slightly.

"Reno... _What happened_?"

Reno opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. He knew if he told Rude the truth about what had happened, he would end up getting a lecture. But Rude was the only person he trusted enough to discuss the situation with, and he valued the older man's input on sticky situations such as the one he had managed to get himself into with Cera.

"We had sex," he managed to mumble after a moment, keeping his voice low.

Rude's eyebrows went up sharply, and Reno knew his partner's eyes were wide behind the dark lenses of his glasses. For a moment they simply sat there, Rude letting the bit of information Reno had just imparted on him sink in fully before finding his voice and asking another question of the younger man.

"Was it... consensual?" he wondered aloud.

"Of course it was, yo!" the redhead barked, his face showing his indigence at being asked such a question. "You know I would _never_ force myself on a woman, no matter how drunk I was."

"I apologize," Rude replied, nodding slightly. "I simply wondered why it was you were being so reluctant to admit you finally did something you've obviously wanted to for some time."

"Because I don't remember a damn thing about it," Reno admitted with a sigh.

Rude stared at him in disbelief for several seconds, then chuckled quietly in the back of his throat. "You had sex with her, and you were so drunk you don't _remember_?"

"That's what I just said, yo," Reno snapped, annoyed at his partner's cheerfulness.

"Sorry," Rude said, holding up a hand as he brought his laughter back under control. "Sorry. I know it's not funny, but you have to admit... it _is_ kind of funny. You've wanted her for so long and now that you've _had_ her, you can't remember a damn thing about it."

"Yeah, well... She _does_ remember," Reno informed him. "And, apparently, I said some things."

"Like what?"

Reno removed his feet from his desk and sat up, scooting his chair under his desk and resting his elbows on the messy surface, placing his head heavily in his hands.

"I think I told her I love her."

"You _think_ you did?"

"I just told you, I don't remember a _damn thing_ about what happened," Reno repeated again, his tone even more annoyed.

"So what makes you think you said anything at all?" Rude asked, managing to keep his cool despite his young partner's tone.

"She asked me this morning if I meant what I said to her last night. And when she was talking about what happened, she said we _made love_."

Rude let out a low whistle as he sat back in his chair, folding his hands together in his lap. "Yeah... You slipped up, Reno. Sounds to me like you said something you shouldn't have – not when you were drunk, at any rate."

"And now..." the redhead's voice trailed off as he shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes. "I told her I didn't remember, and she got all upset. She was actually _crying_ when I left, man."

"And you feel like a stupid shit?" Rude asked.

Reno sighed, closing his eyes as he nodded. "Yeah."

"I'm afraid there's not much I can do to help you there, partner," the darker man said, moving closer to his desk and leaning his forearms on it. Unlike Reno, his personal space was free of clutter, with all of his papers neatly piled to one side.

"If you truly want my advice," he continued, fixing his shaded eyes on the distraught redhead, "I say you go home tonight and give it another shot."

"What?" Reno asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"Try taking her to bed again, and see if it jogs your memory. If nothing else, it'll prove to you whether or not you really did mean what you said to her."

Reno snorted softly. "Yeah, right... I'll be lucky if she lets me anywhere _near_ her after this morning."

Rude shrugged. "It was just a suggestion."

A silence passed between them as Rude continued watching his partner and Reno kept staring blankly at a spot on the wall, his expression pensive.

"Have you told anyone?" Reno asked quietly after a moment.

"About... Cera staying with you?" Rude asked, wanting to be sure they were both on the same page before answering the question. He waited for Reno's nod before replying. "No, I haven't. I told you, your secret is safe with me."

Reno let out a relieved breath and nodded, then started looking over the paperwork on his desk. Things had died down again once the search for Cera had tapered off, and they were once more stuck with nothing to do but go over files and fill out forms.

Almost an hour had passed as they sat at their desks, working quietly, before the silence was shattered by the sound of a struggle in the hallway outside of their office. Reno looked in the direction of the noise in curiosity as Rude rose from his seat and went to open the door so he could check the hall and find out what the commotion was all about.

"Let me go!" a familiar voice demanded, and Reno rose from his own seat as the sound reached his ears.

"Cera?" he whispered her name as he joined his partner in the doorway. He looked down the hall and found her struggling against the grip of two ShinRa guards as Tseng emerged from one of the other offices on their floor, a stern expression on his face.

"What would you like us to do with her, Sir?" one of the guards asked the leader of the Turks. The dark-haired man sighed, running a hand across his tired face before answering.

"Take her up to the President's office," he instructed the men. "He'll decide what to do with her."

Reno pushed past his partner and stepped out into the hall, ignoring the larger man's protests as he approached the group near the elevator bank.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded, directing the question to his supervisor. "Taking her prisoner?"

"Stay out of this, Reno," Tseng ordered without turning to face the hot-headed young Turk.

"You!" Cera spat at Reno, her dark eyes narrowing angrily as she looked at him. "You promised me you would keep me away from this place! You said I'd be safe!"

"I didn't have anything to do with this, babe," he told her, glancing over his shoulder briefly at Rude before returning his attention to her. "I swear."

"Liar!" she yelled, struggling against the guards again. She managed to break free long enough to advance on Reno and slap him hard across the face. The impact of the blow sent the redhead reeling, and he fell to the floor, catching himself with one arm as he brought the other hand up to his face. She had hit him pretty hard, especially for a woman, and his entire cheek and jaw tingled. Pulling back his hand, he was surprised to find blood on his fingertips, and he gingerly touched the corner of his mouth and discovered his lip had split open.

"You said you loved me," she told him in a harsh whisper, her voice slightly deeper than normal with her suppressed anger. "Everything you ever told me, everything you ever did... it was all just a lie. All you ever really wanted was to get in my pants and have your fun before you turned me in so I could be thrown back into my cage. After all, that's where good little lab rats belong, isn't it?"

Reno looked up at her and gasped slightly when he saw her eyes. They had gone from their normal brown to a shade of pure burgundy. He blinked a couple of times, wondering if maybe his vision was messed up from the blow she'd given him, but they remained the same deep red for several seconds before finally fading back to the soft chocolate color he knew so well.

"Cera..." he hesitantly said her name, not really knowing what to say to her. "I'm sorry."

"Go to hell, Reno," she told him calmly as the guards rushed forward and grabbed her once more. She didn't try to fight against them, merely resigned herself to her fate and allowed them to lead her to the waiting elevator.

"The president is going to want to speak with you as well, Reno," Reno heard Tseng telling him as he pulled himself to his feet, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his hand.

"I kinda figured that," the redhead replied, straightening out his shirt and suit jacket before making his own way to the elevator.

"Where are you going?" the dark-haired man asked as Reno pushed the up button for the elevator.

"I don't plan on waiting for Rufus to summon me to his office, yo," the younger man replied matter-of-factly. "There's a few things _I_ want to discuss with him, personally."


	17. Chapter 17

Author's Note: Finally! After three days of trying - and failing - to get this chapter up, I have finally been able to upload it here. For future reference to anyone who's following this story: If this site seems to be having problems, you may want to check my LiveJournal account to see if there's an update there (there's a link in my profile). Generally, I do update here first and then to my LJ, but even if this site is down, the LJ gets updated anyway.

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

Reno barged into Rufus' office despite the secretary seated outside who protested that the president was not to be disturbed. He was surprised to find the only occupant of the room was his employer, having expected the guards to still be there with Cera, getting their orders.

"Tseng called to tell me you were on your way," the blonde man replied to the Turk's unspoken question. "So I had the guards take Cera to another location in the building. Can't have you attempting another escape with her, after all."

"You _knew_?" Reno asked in disbelief. "All this time, you knew I was the one who helped her?"

"Who else would it have been?"

Rufus finally looked up as he asked the question, his blue eyes settling on the slightly older man who was glaring at him lividly from just inside the doorway of his office. The president remained calm, leaning casually back against his desk with his feet crossed at the ankles and his arms folded over his chest, his dark blonde hair falling into his eyes.

"Rude told you, didn't he?" Reno demanded, unable to believe his own best friend had turned him in. "He told you he found her hiding at my place."

"Rude said nothing to me," Rufus insisted.

Reno stared at his employer, unsure whether or not to trust him. If he _did_ trust Rufus' word, it meant that Rude was telling the truth about not having said anything to anyone about Cera, and that someone _else_ had ratted on him. After thinking it over, he decided that he did trust Rude's promise not to say anything, but he couldn't help wondering how Rufus had known.

"You never were very bright, Reno," the young president said with a sigh, shaking his head slightly. "You went to so much trouble to cover your tracks, but there were two things you completely forgot to take into consideration."

Reno thought it was eerily uncanny, the way his employer was carrying on the conversation as if he could read his mind and knew exactly what he was thinking as he stood there. Then again, he had always had a bit of a hot tempter to go along with his blazing red hair, and his emotions were known to show rather visibly on his face when he was upset.

"You altered the time stamps and the video footage outside that security office, but you didn't even touch the cameras outside _your_ office, did you?" Rufus asked, causing the redhead to squirm a bit uncomfortably. "I am not an idiot, Reno. I know it doesn't take you twenty-three minutes to return to your office from mine, even if you use the stairs."

Reno wanted to slam his head into the nearest wall at his own stupidity. He should have known to adjust the time stamps on the video equipment outside of his own office, as well, but he had been so focused on getting Cera the hell out of there that it had completely slipped his mind to do so.

"Secondly," Rufus continued without missing a beat, "you sent that guard away and didn't even bother erasing him from the video of whatever locations he happened to go to. He was supposedly in that office the entire time. But we have footage of him going into the men's room on the first floor, as well as visiting the upstairs cafeteria. Obviously, he can't be in two places at once, and there's only one other person who wasn't accounted for at that time."

"If you knew I did it," Reno said, finally managing to get a word into the conversation, "why didn't you just have me arrested and lock me up like every other criminal?"

"Because I needed you," the younger man replied, pushing off the desk and crossing the room to stand before his subordinate. "You are the only person she trusts."

"Not any more, thanks to you," Reno growled, his voice low and menacing.

"The point is, I knew that if I sent you out to search that facility in Midgar, you would likely take her with you. And, if we were lucky, she would remember something on your little trip. Now, the question is, Reno... _Did_ she remember anything?"

"Like I would tell _you_ after what you just pulled," Reno told him through his teeth.

Rufus laughed at his indignation. "You, Reno, have no place to deny me any information you may have on her. The only thing keeping me from having you locked up like every other criminal – as you so eloquently put it – is that I need you. You are one of my best people." He took another step toward the redhead, straightening his posture and staring coldly at him. "However, if you refuse to cooperate, I will have no choice but to have you detained."

Reno stared his employer down for several long seconds, then finally looked away with an annoyed sigh.

"Tell me what she remembered, Reno," Rufus prompted again, his voice calm, yet stern.

"She remembered everything," Reno answered, keeping his reply as short as possible. He would only give Rufus the satisfaction of indulging him with all of the information he had on Cera's past is he asked for it specifically.

"And what, exactly, does that mean?"

Reno swore under his breath. He should have known Rufus wasn't going to make things easy for him. He reached up and scratched the back of his head, stalling for time in the hopes that Rufus would stop pushing him. However, he also knew that it was unlikely that the powerful, ruthless head of the ShinRa corporation would give up just because he was reluctant to talk.

"Does she know what the source of the mutations in her blood are?" Rufus asked after a moment, choosing to ask Reno about specific details rather than for a more general observation.

Reno nodded, sighing. "Jenova and Chaos."

"Chaos?" Rufus echoed, his pale eyebrows drawing together in thought. "Then that would mean--"

"Her father is Vincent Valentine," Reno finished for him. "And before you go asking, her mother is Lucrecia Crescent."

"The mother of Sephiroth?" Rufus wondered aloud.

"That would be her," Reno replied, crossing his arms over his chest.

"This does not bode well at all," Rufus muttered, turning away from the older man and walking to the desk. He reached for the phone, pushing a button before bringing the receiver to his ear and waiting for someone on the other end to answer. Reno watched him as he stood there, his expression darkening even more with each droning buzz in his ear.

"No one's answering," he said after a moment, then placed the receiver back in place and motioned to the Turk with a wave of his hand. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" Reno asked as he followed Rufus, who uncharacteristically rushed out of the office and made a beeline for the elevator. Reno was surprised at how fast he could move, since he rarely saw Rufus moving at a pace any faster than a determined strut.

"I sent them down to Cera's old suite," Rufus answered as he pushed the down button on the elevator. "They should be down there, guarding her door by now. The fact that they didn't answer when I called them causes me great alarm."

Reno kept his mouth shut about the fact that Cera had been responsible for the deaths of seven ShinRa employees almost ten years ago. It would only make Rufus even more nervous than he already was, and perhaps even spur him into taking drastic measures to ensure she would no longer pose any threat – actions that Reno would much rather not think about.

When they arrived on the floor where Cera's suite was located, Reno immediately stepped in front of the president, blocking the opening of the elevator with one arm in a silent order for him to stay back. If Cera really was as dangerous as Rufus suggested, then she could lash out at anyone who came near her. Despite his feelings for her, it was still his job to protect Rufus at all costs.

Reno silently made his way down the hall, Rufus following several steps behind, and paused at the corner before her suite. He held his breath, saying a silent prayer that the guards were just too busy talking to one another to notice their handsets going off, then turned the corner and stared. The hallway before him was empty, with no sign of the two men who had been escorting Cera earlier.

"Where are they?" Rufus asked from behind him. "I specifically ordered them to stand guard at her door until I contacted them with further instructions.

"Maybe they're inside with her, yo," Reno suggested. "Making sure she doesn't climb out one of the windows or something."

Rufus nodded in agreement and gestured for Reno to precede him into the suite. Reno went to the door and knocked, waiting a few moments for the guards to answer. When no one responded, he reached under his jacket with his left hand and pulled his gun from its holster, moving Rufus aside with his opposite arm and taking a deep breath as he prepared to enter the room.

Once Rufus was out of the line of the doorway, Reno kicked in the door, pointing his gun ahead of him. The door bounced against something and recoiled slightly, forcing the Turk to bring up his free hand to keep it from closing in his face again. Looking down, he saw the bodies of the two security guards who had been escorting Cera. The one looked completely unfazed, while the other wore an expression of pure shock – his eyes wide with terror while his mouth hung open slightly. From the angle at which their heads were facing, he could tell instantly that their necks had been broken.

_I killed him with my bare hands. Snapped his neck like it was a twig._

Cera's words repeated themselves in his head, and he knew she was the one responsible for the guards ending up in this state. Looking up at the room before him, he found it completely empty and lowered his gun to his side.

"You can come in," he told Rufus, his voice quiet in his state of shock.

Rufus entered behind him, and he heard the young president draw in a sharp gasp at the sight of the two men lying dead on the floor. He stepped over the bodies carefully and joined Reno, looking around the room expectantly.

"Where is she?"

"Gone," Reno replied, holstering his gun once more. He sighed and raked a hand back through his hair, wondering what he would be ordered to do now that she had murdered two more ShinRa employees.

"Who do you think is responsible for this?" Rufus asked, gesturing nonchalantly toward the broken men on the floor. Reno let out a short laugh, smirking slightly at his employer's lack of concern for the deceased guards. It was typical of Rufus not to care when people died, even if they were his own people, so long as his pretty skin stayed safe.

"_She_ did it," Reno told him as he moved across the room to sit on the widow sill with a heavy sigh.

"Are you sure?" Rufus asked him, and he could tell the tone of disbelief was forced. He knew what she was capable of, now that he knew she held part of Chaos within her. He was simply trying to be kind, for Reno's sake, by feigning doubt that she could have ever done such a thing.

"I'm sure," Reno admitted , hunching over and resting his forearms on his thighs as he hung his head and let out another heavy sigh. The day had continually gone from bad to worse, and he could only imagine how much things were going to go out of control now that Cera was loose and apparently insane with rage once more.

"Then we need to find her and bring her back as soon as we possibly can," Rufus stated, turning to head toward the door of the suite. "I will call Tseng and have him and Rude scour the immediate vicinity."

"Woah, hold on," Reno protested, shooting to his feet and crossing the room to confront the president. "What about me, yo?"

"_You_ will stay here," Rufus ordered him. "You have already gotten yourself into enough trouble as it is. I will not have you out there helping her get away. Not after what she's done."

"Look... I can see, too, man," Reno retorted. "I can tell how dangerous she is right now. Do you really think I'd let her roam about freely on the streets knowing what she's capable of?"

"That didn't stop you before, did it?"

"She wasn't _like_ this before!" Reno shouted. "And if you hadn't brought her _back_ here, she might never have ended up like this again."

"You can't possibly know that, Reno," Rufus insisted. "Your judgment is clouded because you have feelings for the girl. If she was any other person, you would have brought her in the minute you knew she was capable of causing harm to others, no questions asked."

Reno bit his tongue to keep from saying the vile things he wanted to about his employer, knowing that he was already in enough trouble as it was for having helped her escape in the first place. He also knew that Rufus had a point: He had known she was capable of killing, but a part of him had been in denial that someone as sweet and innocent as her could ever take a life.

"You will stay here, at headquarters, and allow Tseng and Rude to do their jobs and bring her back here, understood?" Rufus asked him, his cold blue eyes staring intently into his.

Reno nodded slightly. "Just... Promise me she won't be harmed."

"I can't do that," Rufus replied with a shake of his head. "If she will not come peacefully, and especially if she attempts to take the life of one of my Turks, I will have no choice but to order her executed on the spot."

Reno closed his eyes, his throat tightening at the thought of Cera being gunned down by one of his co-workers, but managed to nod in agreement after a moment. Rude and Tseng were like family to him, and he understood Rufus' need for them to live over Cera. Still, the very idea of her being ripped away from him with such finality filled him with a sense of dread he hadn't felt in a very long time.

Rufus sighed as he looked at the state the other man was in, and took a step back toward him. "I promise you, Reno... I will have them do everything within their power to bring her back here alive."

Reno nodded again and listened as he heard Rufus' expensive shoes retreating from the room and making their way down the hall toward the elevator. After a moment, he opened his eyes once more and looked down at the bodies of the guards as more of Cera's words floated to the surface in his mind.

_There was no remorse, no pity for them, but I remember feeling... Accomplished. Proud. I killed them, and I enjoyed it._

With a shaky hand, he pulled his phone from his pocket and called the clean-up crew to come and retrieve the bodies.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Reno slouched in his chair, leaning his head back and staring at the ceiling above him as he pushed off the ground with his foot and spun himself around and around in circles. His fingers drummed a rhythm-less beat on the armrest and he nosily blew out a mouthful of air as he continued to spin.

"This is ridiculous, yo," he complained without moving his gaze from the ceiling. "I should be out there, looking for her."

"No, Reno," Elena insisted, looking up from her book to stare at him from across the room. She was seated at Rude's desk, which the bald Turk had left unoccupied when he went out with Tseng to look for Cera. "You were given a _direct_ order by the president. You will obey it."

"And I suppose _you're_ here to make sure I behave, right?" he asked her, his tone slightly bitter. "Tell me, Laney – don't you just _love_ playing babysitter?"

"I was given an order," she replied, squirming slightly in her chair. Reno tilted his head up and stopped spinning to look across the room at her. She actually had the decency to look annoyed. "I will _obey_ the order given to me by Tseng."

"Yeah," Reno drawled, a smirk spreading across his lips. "I bet you do _everything_ he asks of you, don't cha?"

Elena blushed at the obviously sexual overtones of his question, then cleared her throat and returned her attention to her book. Reno thrived on annoying others, and she refused to play into it by saying anything back that might spur him on.

"This is my fault," Reno continued with a sigh as he started spinning the in the chair again.

Elena sighed as well, marking the place in her book and setting it aside before folding her hands together in front of her on the desk.

"Reno."

The redhead ignored her and kept spinning, closing his eyes to keep himself from becoming dizzy.

"Reno," Elena repeated his name, a bit louder, and he stopped to look at her. "This isn't your fault. There's no way your could have seen this coming."

"I knew she was capable of killing people," he told her, scooting the chair closer to his desk and mirroring her posture. "I knew she _had_ killed before. I just... I didn't want to believe it was possible she'd ever do it again."

"I know, Reno," Elena assured him with a small nod. "And, like I said, there's no way you could have known this would happen. She may have been perfectly fine, just like you had thought."

"But she _wasn't_," he said, his voice nearly a whisper. "It's _my_ fault."

"How?" Elena asked, her patience wearing thin. She could only argue with him on this point for so long. Maybe if he gave her a good reason _why_ he thought it was his fault, she could just agree with him and allow him to wallow in his self-pity.

"I slept with her."

Elena rolled her eyes. "Of course you did. That really doesn't really surprise me at all."

"No, Elena," Reno correct her, shaking his head as he met her eyes. "It wasn't like that. She wasn't supposed to be just some stupid one-night stand."

"Then what was she supposed to be? A fling?"

Reno looked away from her accusing hazel eyes. He knew Elena didn't care for his philandering ways, which was one of the reasons admitting what he had to was going to be so hard for him. The other was that he still didn't really want to believe it himself. After all, he'd gone for _years_ without a woman affecting him on that kind of level. Admitting that one _had_ was like giving up a part of who he was.

"Reno?"

He looked over at Elena again, and her face softened at the look in his eyes. She sighed after a moment, looking away from him and reaching out to run her fingers along the corner of the pages of her book. She knew what was going on in his mind, and in his heart. It was the same thing with her and Tseng. She wanted so much to deny her feelings for her boss. She'd even started going out with other guys, but no matter what she still felt that fluttering in her stomach whenever he was near and still dreamed about him at night.

"You love her, don't you?" she asked him, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

Reno shrugged. "I... Maybe. I don't know, yo. I just know that when I'm with her, I feel... different."

Elena nodded, fixing her attention on the book once more as a wistful smile spread across her lips. He could try to deny it all he wanted, just like she tried to deny her own feelings, but she knew the truth.

Reno let out a sigh and stood from his chair, stretching and letting out a loud yawn. He hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night, and the drollness of his day at work was starting to take its toll on him.

"I'm gonna go for a walk, yo," he informed Elena as he strode toward the door.

"Where?" she demanded, standing and quickly moving to block his path. "You better not be going to look for her, Reno."

"I'm _not_," he insisted, gently pushing her aside. "I just need to do _something_ other than sit around here on my ass all afternoon."

Elena reluctantly nodded in agreement and watched him as he leaved the office, hoping she had made the right decision by choosing to let him go.

**

* * *

**

Reno checked over his shoulder to make sure he hadn't been followed before rounding the corner of the old ShinRa research center in Midgar. After a little snooping around back at headquarters, he found out that Rufus had sent Rude and Tseng out to the Junon site where they had first discovered Cera in order to attempt to find some sort of records detailing her containment before having them find her and bring her back. He also discovered that Rufus had posted guards at the Midgar site in order to keep him away.

Unfortunately for them – but fortunately enough, for him – it appeared that Cera had decided to go back to the Midgar site right after her recent escape. He knelt down next to the body of one of the broken ShinRa guards and checked for a pulse, swearing under his breath when he found none. He supposed it had been a bit too much wishful thinking to hope that she had just knocked them unconscious, but the higher the body count, the less likely Rufus would be to let her live.

Standing back up, he reached inside his jacket and pulled his EMR out from the special holster next to the one carrying his gun. He flipped the switch to power it on with his thumb, and it came to life with a low humming sound. He held the weapon down at his side, careful not to push the trigger and electrocute himself as it brushed against his pant leg, and slowly pushed open the door of the building.

Sunlight filtered in through holes in the roof, causing small patches of light to litter the floor here and there, but for the most part the room was cast in darkness. Reno paused just inside the door to allow his eyes to adjust to the dimness, his senses going into overdrive as he went into same sort of predator mode he did when he was on the job. He listened for the faintest sound, looked for the smallest bit of movement in the shadows. He knew she was there, and that she was as much of a threat to him as she was to anyone else who dared to come near her.

_You know she'd never hurt you, man_, a voice told him in the back of his head. _She loves you. Just let her know it's you, and not one of Rufus' goons_.

Reno thought about ignoring the voice, but a part of him wondered if it was right. This was still Cera. She wouldn't hurt him, would she? Okay _maybe_ he deserved that bitch slap in the hallway, but she still loved him... right?

"Cera," he called out her name before he could talk himself out of doing it. "It's me, Reno. I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanna talk, yo."

He stood there and waited for some sort of reply, but none came. After a moment, he relaxed his posture with a sigh, flipping the switch of his EMR to the off position. She _had_ been there, but she was gone now, and he had to go find her before the others did. He turned toward the door to leave, but froze in his tracks when he heard the sound of a low, throaty laugh echoing around him. He spun slowly on his heel, on the alert once more as his eyes darted around the empty lab.

"And what is it you wanted to talk about?"

The voice was different – lower, more pronounced – but it was definitely Cera's. It was almost the same hollow voice she had been speaking in when she told him about what had happened at this very facility almost ten years ago. Reno took a few cautious steps toward the center of the lab, looking around for the source of the voice as he discretely turned his EMR back on.

"Rufus has the others looking for you," he called out into the empty space.

"That really doesn't surprise me," she replied, her voice coming from somewhere to his right. He turned in that direction and kept walking, tightening his grip on his weapon in case he was wrong about her not wanting to hurt him.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"Because I don't know what they'll do to you if they find you, and I don't want to see you get hurt."

He was surprised by the honesty of his own answer, and stopped walking abruptly. Some movement ahead caught his eye and he looked up to see Cera step out from behind a crumbling support beam. She still wore the white dress Rufus had given her, though now it was stained with dust and blood. Her dark hair was a wild, untamed mess around her face, and as she moved closer toward him he noticed that her eyes were once more that deep shade of burgundy he had seen them flash to when she had hit him in the hallway back at headquarters.

"I can take care of myself, Reno," she told him as she continued walking toward him, a slow smile spreading across her lips. "As you, no doubt, have already noticed."

Reno studied her as she came closer, and for the first time he actually felt fear toward her. The way she walked with a simple, catlike grace made him think of his own days of Turk training. Her movements made no sound, perfect for sneaking up on an unknowing target and laying a sudden, deadly assault. His instincts told him to back away, but he stood his ground and waited for her to make the first move.

He almost didn't even see it coming. One second she was standing there, hands at her sides, the next she had lunged herself at him with both fists held straight out in front of her. He just barely managed to dodge the attack, swinging his left arm around in an attempt to hit her in the back of the head with his EMR. She ducked under the swing and threw herself back into him, pinning him against the pillar she had been hiding behind.

The air left Reno's lungs as his body was slammed against the hard stone pillar, and his first instinct was to fight back with everything he had. Doing that, however, usually resulted in the death of his opponent, and that was one thing he wanted to avoid. Cera brought her hands up, reaching back in an attempt to grab his head, and he raised his own hands, grabbing hers and twisting her arms around her back at a painful angle. She stumbled forward, yelling incoherently, and surprised Reno by suddenly bending at the waist and throwing him over her head.

He landed on the cement floor hard, wincing as pain shot up his spine, and slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position. She was already advancing on him once more, and when she jumped into the air to bring her foot down on his chest, he rolled out of the way. He leaped to his feet as she recovered and came up behind her, managing to get a blow in with his EMR before she could turn around far enough to block it. The metal rod connected with the side of her face and sent her sprawling face-first onto the floor, and she growled in frustration as she pulled herself to her feet, grabbing the first object she could find – a piece of wire that hung down from the ceiling. She yanked the thick wire hard enough to pull it free from where it was still connected, and twirled it around, flicking her wrist so it made a loud cracking sound.

"You should have left things well enough alone," she told Reno as she cracked the makeshift whip again. Given different circumstances, the idea of her with a whip might have been a turn-on for him. But now, all it was doing was causing him distress.

With a yell, she lunged at him again, swinging her arm and bringing the wire whip down in a sharp arch. Reno dodged, but the wire caught his shoulder, tearing through his jacket and shirt and leaving a large gash in his skin. He reached up and around, touching the wound, and hissed when he found out it was deeper than he thought. When he brought his hand back in front of him, his fingertips were stained bright red with his own blood.

"Cera, stop!" he pleaded, side-stepping to avoid another blow from that surprisingly lethal weapon. She ignored his protests and continued to lash out at him.

One of the blows came dangerously close to his face and, without thinking, Reno brought up his EMR to shield himself. The wire wrapped around it and with a quick tug Cera had him unarmed and at her mercy. He backed away from her, looking for anything he could use as a weapon, but most of what remained in the old lab were empty beakers and test tubes. She let out a cold laugh and brought the whip down on him. Thinking fast, Reno moved just far enough out of the way to avoid being hit, then grabbed the wire before she could pull it back. They fought over it in a sort of tug-of-war, and Reno winced as the fibers cut into his palm. He would not let go, though.

After a minute or two, she finally let go, and Reno once again found himself laid flat out on his back. He began to sit up, but found two hands being placed on his shoulders, pushing him back down to the floor. He looked up and saw Cera's face above him, her red eyes shining with the gleam of victory. She kept his shoulders pinned to the floor, moving around him to straddle his chest, laughing that cold laugh once more.

"Poor, pitiful, Reno," she mocked him, her hands moving to his throat. Reno's eyes went wide and he grabbed at her wrists, but she held on firmly, her fingers biting painfully into his skin. "You should have just stayed the hell away, but no... You _had_ to come after me, didn't you?"

Reno continued to claw at her hands, but the more he tried to pull them away, the harder she squeezed. He opened his mouth, gasping futilely for breath as his vision began to darken and blur, and he knew he only had a few second left before he would pass out from lack of oxygen. He cursed himself for not listening to Rufus and staying put at headquarters, and for actually starting to believe all that 'love conquers all' bullshit.

"I want you to give those ShinRa bitches a message for me," she continued through clenched teeth. "Tell them the next person who comes after me get shipped back to them in pieces."

Suddenly, she let him go, and Reno drew in a deep, gasping breath, coughing as the air filled his lungs once more. He pulled himself into a sitting position, one hand going to his throat and massaging the soreness away from where her hands had been around his neck like a vice. Once he was breathing easily and his vision had returned to normal, he looked around the laboratory for her. She was gone.

He decided not to stick around and wait for her to come back, or to go looking for where she had run off to. Instead, he got up and retrieved his EMR from where it had been thrown during their fight and left the building. He considered going back to headquarters, but knew that if he did he would have to explain why he looked like someone had beaten the shit out of him, and that would mean an even bigger lecture from Rufus than the one he'd gotten before – not to mention the chance of losing his job for disobeying a direct order.

With a sigh, he turned off his EMR and put it back in its holster under his jacket. There was only one place he could go for help at a time like this. He just hoped they wouldn't turn him away.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

Reno stood in the alley across the street from the bar, staring at the door – which was probably locked – and the sign in the window that read 'Closed.' It was still the middle of the afternoon, and he knew the place wouldn't be open for another couple of hours, but he wasn't sure he could wait that long. Every minute that ticked by was another minute closer to when Rufus would find out about the additional members of the security team Cera had killed, as well as his own failed attempt to bring her back peacefully. And every minute that ticked by was also another minute closer to when Rufus would likely send out an Execute On Sight order for her. He needed to act, and he needed to do it fast if he wanted her to live.

Sighing to himself, he crossed the street, giving the finger to a motorist who honked loudly at him as he blocked their way, forcing them to break for him. Being a Turk automatically gave him the right of way, and if he wanted to he could pull out his gun and shoot the driver and no one would question it. He didn't want any unnecessary attention brought onto himself, however, so he settled for making a rude gesture and continuing on his way to the bar. Once he arrived on the doorstep of the establishment, he raised his hand and hesitated a moment before rapping sharply on the hard wooden surface.

He waited for a full minute before knocking again, then waited a bit longer. When it appeared he was going to get no reply, he turned to leave, but the sound of two voices – one male, one female – arguing on the other side of the door made him stop in his tracks. A moment later, the door opened, and Reno smiled as sweetly as he could at the two people standing before him.

"Tifa, you're looking lovely today... And Cloud, how's it been goin'? Hope the delivery boy thing is still working well for ya."

"What do _you_ want?" Cloud demanded, his blue eyes narrowing in distaste at the sight of Reno. Tifa elbowed him in the side.

"Can't you see that he's hurt?" she asked her companion, waving a hand in Reno's direction. "Look at him."

Cloud sighed in defeat and turned around, stalking back into the bar, the annoyance in his stride punctuated by the heavy sound of his boots hitting the floor as he walked. Tifa smiled apologetically at their guest and reached out to take one of his hands and pull him inside, but Reno winced immediately at the contact and instead she lightly grasped his wrist and turned his hand over, examining the wound. It appeared to be some sort of rope burn, but there were small metallic flecks embedded in his skin.

"Electrical wiring," he told her when he noticed her brow furrowing in confusion. "I've got a gash on my right shoulder, too."

Her eyes flickered to his shoulder and the patch of his suit that was a bloodied mess, but the angry redness around his throat caught her eye and she began reaching out to touch the marks on his skin. Reno ducked away from her curious fingers and she dropped her hand to her side, blushing slightly. She hadn't meant to be so intrusive. She simply did not like seeing anyone in pain. There was a time, of course, when she wouldn't have cared if a Turk was dying at her feet, but things had changed a lot in the last several months since they had helped defend the budding city of Edge from the remnants of Sephiroth.

"Come in, Reno," she said quietly, stepping aside to allow him to pass by. He nodded his thanks to her and entered the bar, standing just inside the door while she closed it and locked back up again. Cloud was seated on a stool at the bar, and Yuffie was sitting on the counter, her legs swinging back and forth. She raised one hand and grinned at him, giving him a small wave, and he returned the gesture, though his smile wasn't as heartfelt as hers.

"Hey there, Turkey," she called. "Looks like someone did a number on ya."

"Yeah," Reno answered with a sigh. He flexed his fingers and bit back a groan of pain, then looked at the young ninja once more. "Where's Vincent, yo?"

"How would I know?" she asked, shrugging her slender shoulders.

"I thought you two were..." he let his voice trail off, but gestured with his hands in a way that suggested they were much more than just friends. Yuffie's jaw dropped and a blush rose in her cheeks at his forwardness, and she sputtered for a few seconds before finally being able to answer.

"Vincent and I are _not_ involved," she told him. "We're _friends_. I don't even _like_ that creepy vampire."

Cloud snorted softly, and Yuffie slapped his shoulder, hard.

"I don't!" she insisted, but the blonde simply shook his head as if to say she wasn't fooling anyone.

"Why do you want to know where Vincent is, anyway?" Cloud asked Reno without turning around to face him.

"Because," Reno replied, staring at the younger man's reflection in the mirror behind the bar, "I need to ask him something, and it's _very_ important."

"How important?" Cloud pried, still refusing to meet the other man's eyes.

"It's a matter of life and death."

"Whose? Yours? Because if it is, then--"

"Cloud," Tifa said his name, her tone warning him to be nice.

"How can you be so nice to him?" he spat, turning slightly on the stool so he could look at her out of the corner of his eye. "After everything the Turks have done. Tifa, this is the man who _literally_ dropped the bomb on your home. And you're treating him like he's one of your oldest, dearest friends."

"Look," Reno stepped in before Tifa could reply, "just because _you_ can't let go of the past doesn't mean other people can't, yo. Yeah, I know I've done some shitty stuff in the past. I wasn't a good person, and I freely admit that. But right now, I need your help. You guys are the _only_ people I can turn to."

"What about ShinRa?" Cloud asked him, finally spinning around to meet his eyes. "You've been their lapdog for years, why can't _they_ help you?"

Reno shook his head. "Trust me... If I went to _them_ for help, it would only create _more _problems."

"So who _is_ it you're trying to save, Reno?" Yuffie asked, trying to steer the conversation away from becoming a full-out brawl. She tilted her head to one side as she looked at him, her legs still swinging freely over the side of the bar.

"Vincent's daughter," he answered simply. Yuffie's legs suddenly stopped and all three of them stared at him in complete silence for a moment. Cloud was the first to break the silence, snorting even louder at Reno's answer than he had at Yuffie's denial that she liked Vincent.

"Vinnie doesn't _have_ any kids," the ninja said slowly, though her voice sounded unsure of what she was saying.

"He could," Tifa stated, heading behind the bar to wash some glasses. "We don't really know much about his past before we all met him, after all."

"Yeah," Yuffie replied. "Except for the fact that he was locked up in the basement of ShinRa manor for _how long_?"

"She wasn't exactly conceived by... conventional means," Reno told them, studying Tifa carefully. She was the only one of the three of them who was fully open to the possibility that he was telling them the truth, and she was refusing to look at anyone else in the room. It was almost as if she was acting guilty about something, and Reno wondered if maybe Rude had told her about Cera. Rufus was bound to have told him and Tseng exactly what they were dealing with before sending them out to look for her. The question was, was his partner stupid enough to tell classified information like that to someone outside of the company? He knew Rude wasn't stupid, though – just cautious. If he told Tifa, he probably did it so that she would be aware if Cera stopped in the bar and could better protect herself.

"So what?" Yuffie asked with a small, nervous laugh. "Was she another one of ShinRa's failed experiments or something?"

"Something like that," Reno answered as he went to the bar and sat down a few stools away from Cloud. "Look, I can't exactly get into all the details right now, but I'll tell you this: She's inherited a part of that Chaos demon from her daddy, and right now it's what's driving her."

"Ohhh," Yuffie said, her eyes going a bit wide with the news. "I get it now. You need Vinnie because he knows how to control it, right?"

Reno nodded slightly. "That about sums it up, yo."

"Good luck finding him," Cloud stated grimly. "He's been missing for weeks."

"Yeah," Yuffie added. "Decided to go off on one of his little trips to Ifrit-knows-where. For all we know, he could be dead in a ditch somewhere." Reno didn't miss the note of displeasure in her voice, and it brought a small smile to his face.

"You _sure_ you don't like him?" he teased her.

"Shut up, Turkey!"

"Cloud," Tifa's voice interrupted the beginnings of their bantering. "Why don't you go get a potion and some bandages so we can attend to Reno's wounds?"

Cloud looked at her like she was crazy for even suggesting they help the Turk, but instead of arguing he got up and left the room in a huff. Tifa came around the bar and placed her hand gently under Reno's elbow, silently requesting that he stand and come with her. He followed her upstairs to one of the bedrooms – hers, judging by the décor – and sat on the bed while she dug around in the dresser for a clean shirt for him to wear.

"This might be a little big on you," she told him, handing him a plain white, button-down shirt, "but I'm afraid it'll have to do until I can wash and mend your clothes."

Reno quietly thanked her, a smirk tugging on his lips. The shirt was identical to the one he was wearing, and the size of it looked to be perfect for a certain bald man he knew. Without warning, he stood and unceremoniously stripped off his jacket and shirt, tossing them into the corner before sitting back down.

"I suppose you wanna fix up my shoulder before I put this on, huh?" he asked. Tifa blushed at the sight of him sitting half-naked on her bed, and he finally understood what it was Rude saw in her. She might be one hell of a fighter, but she was still this sweet girl who actually blushed at the sight of a half-naked man. She was perfect for his partner.

Tifa cleared her throat slightly just as Cloud arrived with the items she had asked for. He remained in the doorway, glaring at Reno until she told him he could go back downstairs with Yuffie, then he retreated, grumbling something under his breath.

"I'm sorry about him," Tifa said as she sat behind Reno on the bed and started to clean up the wound on his shoulder. "He's a bit overprotective."

"Seems to me like he likes you," Reno observed, in a way testing her loyalty to his friend.

"He's like a brother to me," she replied. "I'm sure his feelings go no deeper than that."

"How do you know?" he asked her. "I mean, come on... You're hot, and single. Who wouldn't want a piece of that?"

He turned his head to look at her and saw the blush from before had returned and deepened several shades. She turned her head when she noticed him looking at her, causing her dark hair to curtain over her face and hide the blush.

"I'm not exactly available, Reno," she corrected him, and he raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. "You should already know that, I would think,"she added quietly.

Reno smiled. "Yeah, I was just testing ya. Can't have my best friend being involved with some flaky chick who's ashamed to admit to being with him, yo."

Tifa nodded slightly as she finished cleaning up his wound, then carefully placed a bandage over it before reaching for his hands. She frowned as she examined the metallic flecks that were embedded in his skin, and released his hands with a sigh before tucking her hair behind her ears.

"They have to come out, Reno," she told him. "You might get an infection, otherwise."

"I was afraid you'd say that," he replied with an uneasy smile. Pulling those tiny little bits of metal out of his palms was going to hurt like hell, but he knew she was right. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, holding his hands toward her with the open palms facing upward.

"You want me to get you a drink to help dull the pain?" she asked, and Reno shook his head.

"Just pull them out and get it over with," he insisted.

Tifa hesitated a moment before grasping his hand by the wrist and leaning over to get a closer look at the fragments in his skin. She wanted to make sure she pulled out each one with the least amount of poking possible. Holding her breath, she grabbed one of the fragments between two fingers and gave it a sharp tug, pulling it free from his skin. Reno hissed, grimacing in pain, but didn't complain or ask her to stop. She continued to extract each piece of metal from his hands, and by the time she had finished a sweat had broken out on his brow.

"You're done," she told him, then began carefully wrapping his hands with bandages. Reno finally opened his eyes, panting slightly. That had hurt a _lot_ more than he expected, and it had taken all of his self-control not to scream. He was a Turk, after all, and had been trained to withstand vast amounts of torture. But that had been _nothing_ like any torture he'd ever endured.

"Hey Tifa?" he asked once she had finished wrapping his hands. She looked at him, head tilted slightly to one side as she silently waited for him to continue. "Can I have that drink now?"

Tifa chuckled quietly and continued to gather the supplies they hadn't used so she could put them back in the medical kit downstairs, then stood and made her way to the bedroom door.

"Take that potion, and I'll bring you something to wash it down with," she ordered him, then gave him a smile and went to fix him his drink. Reno looked at the potion she had left on the bed next to him and made a disgusted face. Sure they worked, but they tasted terrible. Deciding to get it over with quickly, he uncapped the bottle and downed the liquid within in one large gulp, coughing slightly as it made its way down his throat.

When Tifa returned several minutes later, he thanked her and hastily drank the whiskey she offered him, desperate to wash the taste that still lingered out of his mouth. He handed the empty glass to her and thanked her again, then looked around the room, taking in his surroundings. The room was a pleasant shade of green with wooden accents, and appeared to have been recently remodeled. He was about to compliment her taste in decorating when something on the bedside table caught his eye. Smirking, he reached over and picked up a very familiar-looking pair of sunglasses.

"Nice shades," he told her, twirling them around on one finger. "A gift? Or did someone leave them here by mistake?"

Tifa reached over and snatched the sunglasses away from him, a blush rising in her cheeks, and took them over to the dresser. She stowed them away in the top drawer, then turned to look at him over her shoulder.

"You should get some sleep," she suggested without fully making eye-contact with him. "Let that potion do its job."

Reno nodded and let out a sigh as he lay back on the bed, stretching out and folding his arms under his head. He knew it would be useless to argue with her. In a way, she was just like his mother had been – whenever she decided to take care of you, she would hear _no_ arguments over it.

"You know," he said just as she was starting to close the door behind her to give him privacy while he rested, "Rude's lucky to have you. He deserves someone he can love, yo."

Tifa blushed slightly and smiled at him. "So do you, Reno. Sleep well."

Reno started at the door after she left, thinking about what she had just said. Did he _really_ deserve someone like that? Sure, Rude was in the same business he was, but Rude was always the sweet one. Rude was a perfect gentleman when it came to women, whereas he merely used them for his own pleasure and then tossed them aside like they were nothing.

He closed his eyes, deciding not to let himself dwell on it too much, and soon the potion began to do the trick and he was fast asleep.


	20. Chapter 20

Author's Note: And here we are, almost at the end of this little adventure. I fear how much people are going to hate me for the way I end it. A sequel is already being planned (two, actually - the plan is to write a trilogy), as well as another story chronicling Reno's early days with the Turks. So never fear, there will still be plenty of reading to do in the future.

On a side note, in case I don't get another chapter up before then, I would like to take a moment to wish everyone a very merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you happen to be celebrating this time of year!

* * *

Chapter Twenty

Reno's stomach woke him up, growling incessantly at the smell of home-cooked Wutaian food that wafted up the stairs to Tifa's room. He stretched, groaning loudly as he turned his head to look at the clock sitting on the dresser – and bolted into an upright position when he saw it was almost noon. He sprang to his feet and rushed from the room, the door bouncing back against the wall as he flung it open before going down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

"Why did you let me sleep so late, yo?" he demanded to know once he reached the bar. Tifa and Yuffie looked up from their lunch and blinked at him a few times before turning to Cloud, who was once again seated by himself at the bar.

"I thought you said he was awake already?" Tifa asked him, but he merely shrugged his shoulders.

"Thanks a _lot_, Cloud," Reno said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Don't mention it," the blonde replied without turning to look at the other man. Reno's hand clenched into a fist and he took a step closer toward him, but Tifa rose from her seat and moved in front of the redhead before he could start anything.

"How are you feeling this morning?" she asked, taking one of his hands in hers and carefully unwrapping the bandages. Reno looked down at his own hand and was glad to see that it was already mostly healed, thanks to the potion she'd given him.

"I'm not in any real pain," he answered, rolling his shoulder to test it. "A little stiff, but that's pretty much normal."

"You're just lucky to be alive, Turkey," Yuffie told him around a mouthful of food. "According to the news, that girl you're looking for is bad news."

Reno looked at each of them in turn. "She's been on the news?"

Tifa nodded. "ShinRa put out a warning that anyone who sees her is to stay away from her and contact the authorities immediately."

"Son of a bitch," Reno swore, pulling his hand out of Tifa's grasp and going to the television she kept behind the bar. He reached up and pressed the power button, then flipped through the channels until he found the news station.

"Three more members of the ShinRa Elite Military Squad have been found brutally murdered today, bringing the total body count of EMS members to ten."

Reno swallowed hard as the newscaster made the statement. Ten people were dead, killed by Cera's hand. Even if they found her and rehabilitated her, she would likely never recover from what she'd done.

"President Rufus Shinra has made a statement that the suspect is to be considered extremely dangerous, and in no way are civilians to attempt to confront her. A kill on sight order has been issued to all members of the military and peacekeeping forces."

"Shit," Reno said under his breath. He hadn't really expected Rufus to let her live with such a high body count, but a part of him had been hopeful.

"In related news, one of the members of ShinRa's Invesitagion Division of the General Affairs apartment is presumed dead."

Reno's eyes went wide as he wondered which of his friends had been killed, and grew even wider when his own picture was shown on the screen.

"President Rufus has issued a statement that he and the remaining Turks, though they are mourning their fellow comrade, will not cease in their pursuit of the suspect until she has been brought to justice."

"Reno," Tifa said quietly next to him. He jumped slightly at the sound of her voice, not realizing she had moved so close to him. "You need to let them know you're okay."

"No," Reno replied, shaking his head slightly. "Let them think I'm dead."

Tifa blinked at him, confused about why he would want his dearest friends to not know he was safe. He turned to her, his expression solemn under the smile he flashed in her direction.

"If they think I'm dead, they won't look for me. But if they know I'm alive, they'll drag me back to headquarters and force me to stay there. I can't help Cera if I'm stuck in a holding cell, yo."

"And how do you think you're going to help her?" Cloud asked, spinning around on his seat. "More importantly, why would you _want_ to? She's killed almost a dozen of your company's men."

"I _told_ you," Reno reminded him through clenched teeth. "She's not the one in control of her actions right now. Chaos is."

"Which reminds me," Yuffie piped up. "I called Vinnie, but he didn't answer his phone – of course. It went straight to voice mail and I left a message, but..." She let her voice trail off and shrugged helplessly, as if to say she didn't really expect him to ever check his messages.

Reno let out a sigh and slumped into one of the booths at the front of the bar, glad that Tifa kept the shades drawn down during most of the day. The last thing he needed was someone walking by and recognizing him.

"You didn't answer my question, Reno," Cloud said sternly as he slid off his barstool and walked over to the table where Reno was sitting. He leaned down, placing his hands flat on the polished surface, and frowned at the Turk. "What makes you think you can help her? What makes you think she won't kill you?"

"She already had her chance," Reno replied, glancing up at the younger man briefly. "If she wanted me dead, she would have killed me before, yo."

"Doesn't mean she won't kill you this time."

"There's a part of her still in there, Cloud," Reno insisted, his voice holding a note of desperation in it. "I know there is. If I could just reach that part of her somehow and draw it back to the surface, everything will be okay."

"Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?" Cloud simply asked before walking back to the bar to reclaim his previous seat. Tifa smiled at Reno from across the room, trying to reassure him that things would work out, but he saw through it. She was just as convinced as Cloud was that this was a mission that was doomed to fail.

Sighing to himself, Reno turned away from them all and stared at the table. He thought about everything that had happened since the day he and Rude had first discovered Cera in the old Junon research facility and wondered when things had changed so much. Three months ago, he wouldn't have been so dead set on trying to save this girl. On the contrary, he would have probably been the most eager to hunt her down and put a bullet between her eyes. She was a challenge, after all, and he never could resist a challenge.

Yet she had always _been_ a challenge to him. It had been a challenge to get her to open up and trust him, to get her to remember and talk about her past. It had been a challenge to keep his initial desires on hold whenever he was around her. It had been a challenge to get her out of ShinRa headquarters and hide her in his apartment for a little over a month. The only thing that hadn't been a challenge for him was developing feelings for her.

He didn't want to say he loved her, because he still wasn't sure that was what it really was. Maybe it was just infatuation, something that would wear off or he'd outgrow after a while. Sure, she was beautiful and her laugh pulled at something within him he hadn't known existed, but that didn't mean anything. Nor did the fact that he'd been willing to wait to sleep with her rather than jumping her bones right away. In his mind, Rude and Tifa were both wrong: He didn't really love her, and he didn't deserve to love her.

"Reno!" Yuffie said his name, smacking him upside the head. "Pay attention, you big lug!"

Reno rubbed his head where she had hit him, turning to look at her standing next to the table with her hands poised on her hips, tapping her foot impatiently.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, slowly coming back out of his thoughts. "What did you want?"

"I _said_, if you want to find her maybe Cid can help," she repeated, crossing her arms over her chest in an annoyed manner.

"Cid?" Reno repeated the name, searching his memory for it. "Cid Highwind? The airship pilot?" Yuffie nodded in confirmation. "How would he be able to help?"

"Cid's pretty good with all that technological stuff you ShinRas like to play with. He could easily hack into the mainframe and find out where they think she is."

Reno considered her offer a moment, then shook his head. "Sorry, Yuffie, but I don't think that'll help us any."

Yuffied rolled her eyes at his refusal. "So what... We're just going to go out and search blindly for her?"

"No," Reno replied. "I have a good idea where she'll be."

"Oh yeah?" the ninja asked. "And where might that be?"

"The facility in Midgar."

"Where they found those dead guards?" Yuffie wondered aloud, hooking a thumb over her shoulder toward the television. Reno nodded in reply.

"Do you really think she'd be stupid enough to go back there?" Cloud asked. Reno opened his mouth to tell him to shut up, but Tifa interrupted him.

"That's probably what ShinRa's stance is," she mused quietly. "They don't believe she would be so foolish to stick around where she killed those men, so they wouldn't bother scouting there. It's the perfect place for her to hide – right in the open."

"Yeah... That's what I was thinking, yo," Reno agreed. "Plus, she grew up in that place. So even if they _were _looking for her there, she'd probably know where to hide to avoid them."

"And I suppose you expect us to help you?" Cloud wondered.

"I don't expect a damn thing from you, man," Reno told him.

"Even so, we'll help," Tifa said. Cloud glared at her briefly, but was forced to turn away when she gave him a stern look.

"I appreciate it," the Turk said as he stood from his seat and made his way toward the stairs. "We'll wait until tonight, so no one will see us. Until then... keep trying to get a hold of Vincent. We could _really_ use his help with this, man."

"I'm on it," Yuffie assured him, waving her cell phone around in her hand.

"Reno, wait," Tifa called after him when he began heading for the stairs once more. He stopped in his tracks and turned to her, while she disappeared through a door behind the bar. A minute later she re-appeared, holding a carefully folded, comfortingly familiar navy blue jacket and white shirt. She brought the garments to him, giving him a small smile as he took them from her and looked them over. "They're not perfect, but they'll do."

"They're in a lot better shape than they were yesterday, yo," he remarked as he examined his clothes. She had sewn up the holes in the shoulders of the shirt and jacket and had actually managed to get the blood out of both of them, as well. He made a mental note to ask her what her secret was sometime – he never had any luck getting the blood out of his clothes after a particularly... _involved_ assignment.

"Don't tell Rude I'm here," he pleaded, keeping his voice low enough so only she would hear him. "I know you two are dating and all, and I know I'm asking you to lie to him, but please... No one can know I'm still alive right now, not even him."

Tifa nodded almost imperceptibly. She wanted to ask him if he didn't trust Rude enough to keep his secret, even after he had remained silent about Cera hiding at his apartment, but held her tongue. Reno knew Rude better than anyone, and if he said that she shouldn't tell his partner that he was alive, then she wouldn't do it out of respect for his wishes.

"Thanks, Tifa," Reno told her, his voice once again a normal level. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead briefly, giving her a half-hearted smile before disappearing up the stairs. She watched him go, hands clasped lightly in front of her. Never in her life had she ever expected to see the boisterous redhead acting so sullen. It was almost as if he knew they were doomed to fail, he just didn't want to admit it to himself.


	21. Chapter 21

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay, but first the holidays had me busy, then I had some issues with my health. But now I'm back in top shape (as much as I can be) and have here for you... Chapter 21. I now know there will only be one more formal chapter, followed by a slightly shorter epilogue chapter. Then... I'll be starting the sequel, lol. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Twenty-One

Reno leaned against the crumbling, dirty wall of the building across from the ruins of the Midgar research facility, head slightly bowed and eyes closed as he waited for the others to join him. He had insisted on going alone at first, in order to scout the area and make sure that ShinRa didn't have any more guards posted there before they went in and started looking for Cera. After confirming that there weren't any military personnel at the site, he called Tifa and told her to meet him with the others. Nearly half an hour had passed since he made that call, and still there was no sign of them. He was about to call the bar once more when he heard footsteps approaching from behind him.

He turned around and sighed in relief when he saw Tifa and Yuffie walking toward him. Cloud lagged several paces behind them, hands shoved into his pockets, his sword strapped to his back. Yuffie raised one of her hands and waved in Reno's direction, and he returned the gesture. Once the three of them reached him, he silently led the way across the deserted avenue to the laboratory. He could hear Cloud's annoying huffing with each step they took, and nearly turned around to tell the ex-SOLDIER wannabe that he was welcome to go home, but worried that if Cera heard their voices she'd run off.

"Are you sure she's even here?" Yuffie whispered to him once they had finally reached the entrance of the ruined building. Reno turned to her and nodded slightly. He hadn't seen her, but he knew she was there. He could feel it.

Before they could question him any further, Reno grabbed the door handle of the building's main entrance and pulled it open. He blinked rapidly as bright lights shone into his eyes, and it took a moment for them to adjust from the darkness outside. He took several cautious steps into the main lab, looking around what remained of the facility where Cera had been brought up.

Not much had remained intact in the wake of the Meteor incident. Beakers and bottles of various compounds were toppled over on the tables and floor, covering the surfaces with a mixture of glass and various colored chemicals. A few computer terminals were set up here and there, most of them either charred from the electrical components inside being fried or sporting monitors that had been blown by the same surges of power.

"We should split up and look for her," Cloud stated, immediately taking on the leadership position of the group. Reno turned to glare at him, removing his EMR from its holster and tapping it against his leg.

"You might find it better for us to stick together," he told him, thinking the younger man's ego had gotten a tad too large since his defeat of Sephiroth and the remnants. "She's deadlier one on one than when faced with a group."

"Nothing I can't handle," the blonde insisted, unsheathing his buster sword and wandering off through the lab. Reno sighed, clearly annoyed, and started after him, leaving Tifa and Yuffie to follow several steps behind him.

"You know," he called after Cloud, his long legs helping him catch up easily with the younger man, "just because you saved the planet from that raving lunatic--"

"Twice," Cloud interjected.

"Twice," Reno confirmed through clenched teeth. "It doesn't mean you get to be in charge of every damn group you're in. In fact, if I recall correctly, it was _me_ and _my partner_ who kept those punk remnants busy while you and your posse were beating down the bahaumut that bitch Kadaj summoned over the city."

"Right," Cloud responded, less than thrilled. "And who fought both Loz and Yazoo off on that tunnel - while riding on a motorcycle, no less?"

"Who blew up their asses at the other end of that tunnel?" Reno threw back.

"Guys!" Yuffie shouted, stepping between them and placing a hand on each of their chests. "Cool it. Do you really think we're going to find this girl and bring her back if all we do is stand here and argue all night?" She directed the question to Reno, looking to him for an answer. He merely nodded and began walking away from them. The young ninja turned to the other man and punched him hard in the shoulder before following the redhead, keeping a few steps back to give him space to cool off.

"This place is too quiet," he announced after a moment, looking around once more and scrutinizing every little detail of the surroundings. There had to be something out of place, but it was hard to tell what, exactly, in the mess of the wreckage. Shaking his head to himself, he started moving again – but stopped cold in his tracks when the power to the building suddenly shut off.

Reno looked back over his shoulder, attempting to find the others in the darkness. Despite working for ShinRa, though, he didn't have any of the genetic bells and whistles that their precious test subjects possessed. He had had his Turk training, however, and had been conditioned to compensate with his other senses should he ever have one of them compromised. So he let his ears become his eyes and listened to the sounds around him in order to determine what was going on.

He heard the footsteps of the others, coming from three distinctive locations, and suddenly realized what Cera had been up to. They had come in as a group, but had ended up gradually moving away from each other once they were inside the building. That was the opportunity she had been looking for. Together they were relatively safe, but split apart she could pick them off easily. Just like he had said.

"Everyone stop moving." Reno ordered, and the footsteps died at once. "Cloud, can you see us all?"

"I might have had a couple of Mako injections, Reno, but my eyes aren't _that_ good. I can see Yuffie and just make out you, but that's it."

"Where's Tifa?" Reno asked, figuring the fighter would speak up about her own position. "Tifa?"

"Tifa?" Cloud called, his voice holding a note of fear when she didn't respond. Reno moved toward the direction of Cloud's voice, stopping when he reached the other man, who had repositioned himself closer to Yuffie. Apparently, now that it appeared one of their number might be missing, he was starting to take what Reno had said about sticking together a bit more seriously.

"We have to find her," he insisted once Reno reached them, and the Turk nodded in agreement. He knew Yuffie wouldn't be able to see the gesture, but Cloud would.

Grabbing the ninja's arm, he followed the sounds of Cloud's heavy footfalls as they retraced the steps to where they had last seen Tifa. Cloud continued calling his friend's name, causing Reno to wince as his voice echoed throughout the building. If they had been trying to keep their whereabouts secret from Cera, he was causing them to fail.

A soft groaning somewhere off to his left caused Reno to stop in his tracks. He reached out and grabbed Cloud by the shoulder, pulling him back and steering him in the direction of the noise, which repeated itself as they drew closer. A moment later, Cloud was on the ground next to Tifa, and Reno could just make out him helping her into a sitting position.

"How is she?"

"Someone hit her in the head," Cloud stated. "She's barely conscious."

"How did she get all the way over here?" Yuffie asked, bending down to try to get a better look at Tifa's injury.

"My guess is, Cera probably drugged her," Reno suggested, looking around on the floor around them. "Dragged her over here away from where we were in an attempt to split us up even more."

"Then why bother hitting her at all?" Cloud asked, the calmness of his voice barely masking his anger.

"Well," Reno replied, picking up a piece of damp cloth from the floor and holding it out toward Cloud. "Probably making sure Tifa wouldn't get up and run once this wore off. Smell it, yo."

Cloud hesitated, then leaned forward slightly and sniffed at the cloth that was being held toward him. He shook his head violently as his head began spinning from the fumes, then turned his gaze to Reno.

"What is it?"

"Chloroform," Reno answered as if it should have been obvious.

"Where would she get _chloroform_?" Cloud shot back.

"Right here," Reno replied, waving an arm about to indicate the lab around them. "Probably made it herself."

Cloud let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl and pulled Tifa's unconscious form into his arms, standing and cradling her to his chest.

"I'm getting her out of here."

"Good. Take Yuffie with you, too," Reno suggested. "And don't come back."

"But, Reno!" Yuffie protested. "You said so yourself, she's dangerous."

"I know that. Which is why I think it would be best if all three of you got the hell out of here. If she kills me, fine, I deserve it... but I don't want more innocent blood ending up on her hands because of me, yo."

Cloud stared at Reno a long time, his enhanced eyesight allowing him to fully take in the Turk's facial expression. For once in his life, it appeared the redhead was being dead serious – he really _did_ want them to get out of there. But Cloud also knew that if Cera killed Reno, she would be free to continue killing others. That was why he had – albeit reluctantly – agreed to go on this little mission: He wanted to put an end to the killing spree before more lives were lost.

"I'll take Tifa and Yuffie outside, but then I'm coming back to help you," Cloud insisted.

"Cloud--"

"I'm in this now, Reno," he cut the other man off. "I'm not going to back down."

Reno nodded reluctantly after a minute, knowing that when Cloud put his mind to do something, nothing short of a nuclear explosion would prevent him from accomplishing his goal. He listened as Cloud carried Tifa outside to safety, Yuffie following in his wake. Their steps gradually grew quieter as they moved farther away, until he could no longer hear the footfalls or Cloud's voice as he spoke to the unconscious girl in his arms, telling her everything would be okay. The silence was nice. It allowed him to focus on the sounds around him. He listened carefully, attempting to hear any breathing or footfalls that didn't sound like Cloud's.

The stillness was suddenly shattered by the sound of something falling from above, and Reno barely had enough time to jump away as a section of steel and concrete came crashing down. He threw himself flat on the ground, covering his head as small pieces of debris rained down on his back, and didn't dare to move until the silence had returned once more.

"Reno!" He could barely make out Cloud's voice, which sounded muffled and distant. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Reno called back, standing up and dusting off his suit pants and jacket.

"What the hell happened in there?"

"I don't know, yo," he replied, checking for his EMR and realizing he had dropped it when he hit the ground. Swearing under his breath, he got down on his knees and began feeling around in the darkness for it. "Something fell and nearly crushed me, though."

"Well whatever it is, it's blocking the door," Cloud shouted, and Reno could just make out the sound of him banging against the door on the other side of the rubble.

"Go around back," Reno suggested. "There's gotta be some sort of service entrance somewhere in this place."

"They'll never find it in time."

Reno's hand stilled in its search and he looked up into the black air surrounding him, turning to face the direction of Cera's voice. He could tell by how clearly he heard her – in spite of her speaking rather quietly – that she was no more than three or four feet away from him.

"What do you mean?" he asked, slowly backing away from her as he got to his feet, carefully taking each step in an attempt to keep from making any noise and altering her to his position.

"By the time they find that second entrance, you'll be dead. Then I'll be able to start on them, one by one." He could hear the cold grin in her voice and almost ordered her to leave the others alone, but he knew that if he said a word it would immediately tell her where he was.

"Stop trying to run away from me, Reno," she continued in a low whisper, and he was shocked to hear her voice right next to his ear. Not only had she found him, she'd also managed to sneak up on him without him even noticing. "Are you really that stupid? Why would I have cut the lights if it would hinder my ability to see you?"

"Of course," Reno sighed, closing his eyes. "The Chaos gene gave you heightened senses."

"As a matter of fact, yes," Cera told him. "I can see the light sheen of sweat on your brow, hear your heart racing... _smell your fear_."

The last three words came out in an almost animal-like growl. The body next to him was Cera's, of that he was certain, but the voice was no longer hers. The demon had nearly taken full control of her. Soon she would be gone, forever lost in her own body.

"Cera," he said her name, turning his head toward her and staring at the dark outline of her face. "You have to fight this thing, yo. I _know_ you're still in there, just listen to me. You have to come back."

Chaos just laughed at him – laughed at him and wrapped her arms around him, fanning her fingers our across his chest and stomach.

"Poor, poor Reno... You want your dear, sweet Cera back? Well, you can't have her." The hand on his stomach slowly began to move lower, and it was all her could do to keep from shuddering as the thing inhabiting Cera's body caressed him intimately. "Maybe we could have a little fun before I kill you, though."

The demon laughed again, a low, chilling sound that sent a shiver down Reno's spine. It was a sound that promised no pleasure, but immense pain and suffering. He clenched his jaw angrily and shook his head, his blue eyes full of fury.

"I don't fuck monsters like you," he told her visage through clenched teeth.

"I think that really hurt Cera," the demon replied. "You calling her a monster. After all, that's what she has always feared – that she is nothing more than a cold, heartless monster."

"_She_ isn't the monster," Reno corrected. "_You_ are."

"Same thing," Chaos whispered into his ear before shoving him violently and sending him to the floor.

Reno landed hard on his side, his arm twisting under him at a strange angle. He knew it hadn't broken, but there would be some serious bruising – _if_ he somehow managed to make it out of there alive.

"Anything else you'd like to say before dying?"

The question was followed by the distinct sound of a gun being cocked, and Reno brought his hand up to find his holster empty. A humorless laugh escaped his lips and he laid back on the floor, spreading his arms out to his sides.

"_That's_ why you were getting so up close and personal, yo... to lift my gun."

"Congratulations, Reno, you won. Now... Say goodbye and I'll give you your prize."

Reno closed his eyes, even though the darkness already prevented him from seeing, and waited for the final shot. After a moment, it came – a single, deafening bang. He waited for the searing pain that should accompany the bullet ripping through his body, but the pain never came. Opening his eyes, he brought his hands to his chest and felt around, finding no bullet wounds, and wondered how someone like Cera could be such a lousy shot.

"Reno..."

The voice was quiet and soft, gentle and feminine, and it sent him into an instant panic.

"Cera?"

The lights suddenly came on in the building once more and Reno blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, then his mouth fell open as Cera dropped his gun and slumped to the floor, a bullet wound in her chest. He looked around wildly and his eyes settled on the still-smoking barrel of a rather familiar gun.

"Vincent."


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Vincent."

Reno stared at Cera's father for a moment, taking in the emotionless way he simply stood there, staring at his own child, who he had just shot down. Then he quickly moved over to Cera, lifting her into his lap as he removed his jacket and balled it up, holding it over the flowing wound in her chest.

"Reno," she said his name again, smiling softly. Then her smile fell a moment later. "I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, babe," he told her, stroking her hair.

"But I hurt you," she whispered, her eyes – once more their natural shade of brown – filling with tears. "I almost killed you."

Reno grinned at her, shaking his head. "That wasn't you. I know you'd never hurt me."

"Reno, what happened? We heard a gunshot!" Yuffie yelled as she ran into the lab. She stopped at the sight of Vincent and looked from him to where Reno was sitting on the floor, cradling Cera, and quickly shut her mouth. Cloud soon arrived behind her, leading a half-conscious Tifa.

"I'm gonna call for help, yo," Reno said as he fished in his jacket pocket for his phone. He was dismayed to find that the fabric was already starting to soak through with her blood, and his fingers slipped twice as he attempted to dial.

"This is Reno. I need an emergency medical team at sector 8C of the Midgar ruins, at the research annex – _now_."

He ended his call and looked down at Cera to find her eyes closed. Panicking, he began to shake her until she opened them again.

"You gotta stay with me, okay? Help's coming, just don't... Don't close your eyes. Hold on a little longer, yo."

"What does it matter, Reno?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. "Everyone knows what I've done, what I am... I deserve this."

"No, you don't," he told her angrily, tears stinging the backs of his eyes. "Don't you ever say that. I _told_ you... _That wasn't you_."

She looked at him silently for a long while, then finally spoke once more. "What if they don't feel that way, though?"

"Who gives a fucking shit what _they_ think? What matters is what _I_ think, what _I_ know. Cera... Chaos could have killed me, but it didn't. _You_ didn't let it."

Her eyes began to fall closed again and Reno shook her once more, applying more pressure to the balled-up jacket he held to her wound.

"Cera, don't you dare close your eyes. You stay with me."

"I can't..." she whispered weakly.

"You _have_ to," Reno told her through clenched teeth. "I won't let you leave me, I... I need... I..."

She slowly reached up with one hand as he struggled to find the words and gently touched the side on his face, tracing the tattoo across his cheek with her fingertips.

"You love me," she told him with a small, sad smile. "I know..."

Reno yelled her name as he eyes fluttered closed, but the sound was drowned out by the approaching helicopters landing on the street outside the building. He sat her up in his arms and she opened her eyes slightly as he picked her up and began carrying her toward the back entrance that Yuffie had burst through only minutes before.

He cast a glance at the others as he walked by them: Vincent, as stoic as ever, simply kept staring straight ahead and didn't even look at his daughter. Yuffie attempted to give him a reassuring smile, but the tears in her eyes didn't make it very convincing. Cloud nodded apologetically at him as he held Tifa, whose face was streaked with tears. She reached out and touched Reno's arm with one gloved hand, mouthing _I'm sorry_ as he passed by.

Ignoring their premature, miniature funeral procession, he continued down the back hallway, meeting Rude about halfway to the exit. The larger man wasted no time in embracing him, telling him how worried he'd been that he really was dead.

"Yeah, Rude, I'm glad you're glad to see me and all, but we kinda got a pressing issue here," Reno pointed out, nodding at Cera's unconscious form in his arms. Rude carefully took her from him and rushed back out of the building, placing her on a stretcher to be loaded onto the medical chopper and flown to the hospital. Reno attempted to get on with the medical team, but Rude grabbed his arm and steered him to the second helicopter that was parked nearby.

"The boss is already at the hospital," he yelled over the beating of the propellers. "You're riding with us. Where's Tifa?"

"Inside with the others," Reno yelled back. "How'd you know she was with me, yo? I asked her not to tell you I was still alive."

"One of the girls at the bar told me she'd gone looking for someone in Midgar. When I heard you'd called from Midgar, I put two and two together."

"Smart man," Reno replied with a smirk and climbed into the helicopter as Rude ran back inside the building. As soon as he sat down, Elena jumped out of the seat next to the pilot and threw herself at him, hugging him tightly.

"Don't you ever scare us like that again, you son of a bitch," she scolded him. Reno laughed.

"If only Tseng could see you now, Laney, throwing yourself all over another man."

"I heard that, Reno," Tseng called back from the pilot's chair, turning around slightly and chuckling at the floundering expression on the redhead's face. "We're all glad to know you're safe, but the President is going to want to have a word with you once everything's died down."

"Yes, sir," Reno replied with a small nod of his head. He was about to ask just how pissed Rufus was when Rude returned with the others. He was surprised to see his partner was now carrying Tifa – and not surprised to see Cloud glaring at the back of Rude's head. Elena moved back into her seat by Tseng as the three of them got in, and Reno watched as Vincent gestured for Yuffie to precede him onto the chopper, only to have her say something to him that sounded suspiciously like 'go to hell.' Then she climbed in and sat as far away from him as she possibly could.

Once all the passengers had been loaded onto the chopper, Rude tapped the back of Tseng's chair and they took off, heading for the hospital.

**

* * *

**

"Where is she?" Reno demanded as he strode determinedly toward Rufus, whose back was to him. "I want to see her."

"Relax, Reno," Rufus said in a calm, even voice, turning around to face the worried redhead. "You can't see her right now."

"Bullshit! I _want_ to see her!"

"She's in surgery," Rufus informed him in that same, emotionally-detached tone. "All any of us can do right now is just sit down and wait."

Reno opened his mouth to protest, but Rude came over and grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from their employer before he completely lost his temper and ended up punching the younger man.

"Rufus is right," he told Reno, leading him over to a chair. "There's nothing more you can do. It's in the hands of the surgeons and the gods right now."

Reno sat down and placed his head in his hands as he closed his eyes, letting out a loud, frustrated growl. When he opened his eyes a moment later, the first person he saw was Vincent. Immediately, he was on his feet once more and in the other man's face, pointing an accusing finger at him.

"You! What the hell do you think you were fucking doing, shooting her like that?"

"I had no choice," Vincent replied in a low voice, averting his burgundy eyes from the redhead's piercing blue glare. "If it will make you feel any better, it was not my intention to cause her great harm."

"_Not cause her great harm_? You _shot_ her! What the fuck did you think would happen?"

"Reno," Yuffie said his name, stepping up to the side of the two men and attempting to pull the angry Turk back. Her eyes moved to Vincent, and she watched him as he bowed his head slightly, his eyes falling closed as he continued to speak in a quiet voice.

"The only thing that could have stopped her was pure mako. The interaction of the mako with the Jenova mutation in her blood would hinder the ability of Chaos to control her."

"So... what?" Reno asked with a derisive snort. "You shot her with mako-laced bullets?"

"With a bullet made from pure mako crystal," Vincent corrected him.

"You _shot_ your own daughter, man."

"I know."

"I didn't even think _you_ could be that cold, yo."

"I only did what had to be done in order to stop her."

Reno grabbed him roughly by the front of his cape and slammed him back against the wall. Rude and Tseng both jumped up from their seats behind him and pulled him back.

"Reno, we are in a place of public service," Tseng reminded him. "Do not make me have to take you into custody."

Reno glared at Vincent over Tseng's shoulder, but did as he was ordered and sat back down to wait for news on Cera's condition. He couldn't stand to look at Vincent any longer, though, so his gaze moved around to the others. Rude was sitting several chairs down from him, holding Tifa in his lap and talking quietly to her as he stroked her hair. He kissed her forehead and Reno glanced over at Cloud, who was standing against the wall across from them with his arms folded over his chest, glaring venomously at Rude.

"How long have they been dating?" Elena whispered to him, and he turned to find her leaning over the armrests between their seats.

"You mean you, Queen of All Gossip, don't already know?" he asked her, smirking. She smacked his arm and called him a jerk, and he told her everything he knew about Rude's relationship with Tifa. It helped pass the time, and calmed him down a bit as they continued to wait for the news on Cera's surgery.

He had just asked Elena when she was going to get up the nerve to jump Tseng's bones when one of the surgeons came out and asked to speak to Rufus. Reno immediately rose to his feet and went over to stand outside the door of the operating wing, staring in through the window, but unfortunately the surgeon had his back turned and he couldn't make out what was being said. After a moment, Rufus nodded and thanked the doctor, then came back out into the waiting room.

"Well?" Reno asked, voicing the thought on everyone's mind.

Rufus stared at him silently for a long moment, then let out a deep sigh, looking down at his expensive, polished shoes. When he looked back up again, he couldn't quite meet Reno's eyes. Reno felt the cold fist of dread clenching at his heart, and in the next moment his fears were confirmed.

"I'm sorry, Reno," Rufus said quietly, shaking his head.

Reno remained still, his entire body in shock from the news. He was vaguely aware of the sounds of a few people crying around him, and of Rude's deep voice trying to soothe someone – probably Tifa, maybe Elena, possibly both – but he made no sound or movement of his own. Then, without so much as a word, he turned and walked out of the hospital.

Yuffie watched him as he left, then turned back to Vincent. She hesitated a moment, bringing a hand up to her mouth and biting her nails, then approached him and laid a hand on his leather-clad arm.

"You okay, Vinnie?" she asked, her eyes fixed on his face: the usual scowl he wore, his closed eyes, his slightly furrowed brow.

"I am fine, Yuffie," he insisted as he opened his eyes, then pushed off the wall and walked away from her, heading in the same direction Reno had gone – toward the exit. She sighed as she watched him go, not expecting to hear from him again for quite some time.

**

* * *

**

After more than an hour of aimlessly wandering the streets of Edge, Reno finally found himself back at his apartment. He wondered how he had managed to not get picked up for questioning – since he had blood all over the front of his shirt – but he figured people either recognized him from the news reports on his disappearance, or they were too scared to approach a man covered in blood who was walking around like some sort of zombie.

He was relieved to find that no one was there to try to comfort him. He had half expected to find either Rude or Elena sitting on his couch, waiting to lend him a sympathetic shoulder to lean on. He would have thrown them out if they _had_ been there. He just wanted to be alone.

Alone... He'd been alone most of his life, but never had he _felt_ so utterly, completely alone. He felt almost lost, like he was trying to find his way out of a fun house and kept opening the wrong door. The last time he had felt that way had been years ago, when his mother died.

Reno shook his head, attempting to banish all the negative thoughts, and made his way back to his bedroom. He figured a good night's rest in his own bed would make him feel better. Only, when he stepped through the doorway of his room, his grief increased tenfold.

The sheets on the bed were still bunched up, and he could almost imagine Cera lying there, sleeping. He swore he could hear that soft, even breathing... the way he had heard it the night of his birthday. He slowly made his way to the bed, staring at her pillow, and everything from that night came rushing back to him. He remembered it all: the feeling of her skin, the taste of her kiss, the sound of her breathy moans... and the way he told her he loved her.

Closing his eyes, Reno sat down on the bed and grabbed her pillow, pulling it toward him and picking it up to hold tightly against his chest. He leaned down and breathed in the scent of her shampoo – lilies and rosewood, with a touch of honey – and felt a sob escape his chest. His fingers clamped down on the pillow and he buried his face against it, and for the first time in fifteen years, he cried.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

_One Week Later..._

Reno held back tears as he laid the single white orchid he'd brought with him to the cemetery among the half-dead roses that Rufus had ordered to be placed there. He had kept himself locked in his apartment for four days following Cera's death, effectively missing her funeral, but he knew it was for the best. He didn't want his co-workers and friends to see him in the state he would have been in at the service, and he didn't want his final memory of her to be seeing her in a box that was about to be buried in the ground.

Rude had informed him that the ceremony had been closed-casket and banned from the press, at Rufus' request. Attendance was limited to ShinRa employees and the members of AVALANCHE who had helped Reno. In the end, the only people who came to show their respects were the other Turks, Tifa, Yuffie, and Cloud. Reno asked about Vincent and Rude replied that he spoke to Yuffie concerning his whereabouts, but she had no idea. Apparently, he had skipped down immediately after learning Cera had died.

Reno reached up and ran his fingers over the letters carved into the headstone, spelling her name: Ceraluci Valentine. A sad smile spread across his lips as he wondered if she would have kept her own name or taken his if he had ever gotten a chance to ask her to marry him. Grief washed over him once more as he imagined what it might have been like to have her for his wife, and _maybe_ one or two kids of their own. Rude always talked about how he wanted to settle down some day, but Reno had never really thought about it before... and now it was too late.

Sighing to himself, he quickly pushed away the thoughts in his head and stood to make his way back to the company car that had driven him out to the cemetery. He quietly thanked the driver for opening the door for him and looked back over his shoulder one last time, silently promising her that he would never love anyone else the way he loved her, then got in the back of the car to be driven back to headquarters.

**

* * *

**

Rufus sat in his chair and calmly stared at Reno, drumming his fingers on the dark, polished surface of his desk. He has asked the redhead to report to him immediately following his trip to Cera's grave site, and now he had the unpleasant task of punishing one of his best people.

"You left headquarters to go after her."

"Yes, sir," Reno replied.

"_Against_ my wishes," he further clarified.

"Yes, sir."

Rufus sat forward on his chair, leaning his forearms on his desk and sighing as he interlaced his fingers. He returned to simply staring at Reno, an act which caused the Turk to shift about restlessly on his feet.

"You know," he finally said after a moment, "by all rights, I should get rid of you. You've been constantly undermining me for the past few months, now. Kidnapping--"

"She went with me of her own free will," Reno argued.

"You are in _enough_ trouble as it is, Reno," Rufus continued, his tone threatening. "I suggest you not make it worse by _cutting me off_."

Reno let out an annoyed sigh and straightened his posture, mumbling an apology, then waited for his employer to continue.

"I gave you a direct order not to go after her, and you did it anyway," Rufus continued, barely keeping his temper in check. "You nearly got yourself killed... Hell, for a while there, we thought you _were_ dead. You knew of her location, knew that she was likely still holed up in that place, but instead of informing us, _like you should have_, you took matters into your own hands and risked the lives of three civilians _in addition_ to your own."

Reno lowered his head, choosing to stare at his feet for the duration of Rufus' rant, and remained quiet for a long while after he stopped speaking in order to be sure there was nothing else to be said before finally opening his mouth again.

"So what's my punishment?" he asked before daring to look up at the younger man.

Rufus looked down at his hands, carefully considering what he should do. Reno _had_ to be disciplined for his insubordination, but he didn't want to take decidedly drastic measures. After all, he was still one of the best Turks he'd ever had in his employment.

"Three months probation," he finally decided. "Two weeks off without pay, and the rest of the term will be restricted to desk duty, only."

Reno opened his mouth to protest, but Rufus gave him a look that told him it was a thought best kept to himself. Instead, he simply nodded and waited to see if any further instructions would be given.

"You're free to go, Reno," Rufus concluded, standing from his chair and making his way around the desk. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to attend."

Reno nodded and quietly thanked him, though he wasn't sure what he was thanking him for. Perhaps for sparing his job, maybe for sparing his life... Whatever the reason, he figured thanking Rufus Shinra was a much wiser move than telling him to go fuck himself. Rufus seemed to accept the gesture, and Reno left the office, heading for the elevator with the intent of swinging by his office and grabbing a few things before going home for his little 'vacation.'

Rufus followed Reno out of his office and stood by his secretary's desk, watching the redhead board the elevator before turning and going in the opposite direction, toward the stairwell. He supposed he could have waited for the elevator on its return trip after taking Reno down, but Rufus had never been a very patient man and usually preferred taking the stairs, anyway.

He went down several flights, passing the floor with the Turk offices, the administration offices, and even the lobby. Finally, he reached the bottom floor: a sub-basement that housed most of the company's top-secret research and development labs. The labs hadn't gotten much use since they were built, but the recent events had caused a new surge of scientific inquiry amongst the highly-trained technicians he employed.

"President Rufus, sir," a young woman greeted him as he approached the door leading to one of the labs, bowing respectfully before him. "We have been expecting you."

"As you should have," Rufus replied, taking the clipboard she handed to him and skimming over the paperwork detailing one of their newer experiments. "And how are things going today?"

"The subject remains stable, sir," the girl replied, watching him enter his security code into the laboratory's electronic lock and following him into the lab once the code had been accepted.

"No overt signs of negative side-effects?" he questioned her, flipping to the next page of the report and briefly glancing at it.

"No sir," she confirmed. "In fact, it seems that the subject is thriving if anything."

"Good," Rufus told her, handing back the clipboard. "Please inform Dr. Lazorius that I would like to speak with her."

"Yes, sir."

She bowed one last time and scurried off to find the lead researcher. Once he had been left alone, Rufus approached the curtained area where the test subject was being held and pulled back the barrier in order to get a closer look for himself.

The monitors showed a stable heart rate and steady respiration, which made him glad. Things had been a bit shaky the first few days, but it seemed that the research team had finally discovered the right combination of drugs to keep the subject sedated without bringing down the vitals to a dangerously low point.

Sighing to himself, he stepped up next to the bed and reached out with one hand, stroking the dark hair back from her face. She looked so peaceful, lying there, that it was almost impossible to imagine the immense danger she posed. He supposed that deceptively innocent look was what had attracted Reno to her in the first place.

"You asked to see me, sir?"

Rufus turned his head slightly, glancing briefly at the middle-aged, spectacled doctor as she came over to stand beside him, then looked at Cera's unconscious form once more.

"Dr. Lazorius, as I am sure you know, I am not going to be able to continue coming down here every day as I have been this past week. After all, it would begin to arouse suspicion."

"Of course," the doctor agreed, clasping her hands behind her back.

"I will return this time next week, and once more the following week, but after that I am afraid I will be unable to personally oversee your research. However, I still wish to be kept up-to-date on _all_ procedures that are carried out on this subject, understood?"

"I would never think to keep you out of the loop, sir," she assured him, reaching up with one hand to straighten her glasses.

"Excellent," Rufus replied with a smile. He stroked Cera's hair one last time, then turned to the woman and bowed slightly. "I shall leave you to your work then, doctor."

The doctor returned his gesture, then silently left him to go back to her lab. Rufus pulled the curtain around the bed back into place, then made the trip back to his office on the top floor, smiling to himself the entire way.

* * *

Author's Notes: And there you have it... the official ending of _Project V._ Wonder how Cera survived and what the hell Rufus is up to? Then you'll just have to read the sequel - _Calamity's Daughter -_ coming soon!

I just want to take a moment to thank each and every person who took the time to review this story. It means a lot to me. You guys rock! By name: Just Jill, Lady Karai, polisheffect, SeventeenBlack, Skavnema, -quillish wammy-, Kaye Sohma, DaydreamerMagby, litchi, Valentinementis, cookiekitten, Ruby, Lady Jessikherrka, DreamAnimeKitten, and Insanity. Thank you all!

Also, I'm going to pimp another story I just started working on/posting here. This time around it's a Death Note story, and it focuses on L's past and what made him the way he is in the manga. If you're into Death Note, be sure to check it out! Just hit up the story called _Enigma_ in my profile.

Thanks again to everyone who read this story. Expect the first chapter of the sequel sometime next week. Until then... Peace out!


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